Distress Call
by Pernshinigami
Summary: A massive anime/who cross with so many shows its crazy, Aizen sets a trap for the Doctor, sending Gin, Grimmjow and Stark to mount an assault on Cardiff. The companions and Torchwood don't have to face the battle alone, new allies come to join them.
1. Chapter 1

A few words before I begin. Okay a lot of words but there's a process behind this. Part one is going to be a doctor who thing. Then if people don't look at me like i'm crazy there will be a seperate fic of the same timeline under Torchwood.

Okay, this fic is part of a massive anime/manga/scifi crossover that I've been working on for about 3 years privately. The series was a collaborative effort between myself and my online friends ZP and Lucas. Mainly we did it as RP's. So I'm sticking my neckout putting it up here. And I feel really, really bad that an already long fanfic needs a guide, but here it goes.

Gatekeepers is something along the lines of an anime/scifi Kingdom Hearts. When it was in its infancy I used 'little' universes, shows like Ben 10 or Avatar that were fun, but lacked intensity and drama and really mostly children watch. As it developed I decided to stick mainly to anime and sci fi, and haven't gone back to the 'kiddy' set since.

My pathetic attempts at a prologue/preface follows.

* * *

Ages and ages and ages ago, about the time of the last ice age, Earth wasn't just inhabited by humans, it was inhabited by Gods. These gods thrived, maintaining both the balence of peace and the balence of reality. And they were teaching and guiding humanity through its early development. The gods were unique. In a manner similar to the Timelords regenration they were constantly being reincarnated as babies when they died, but maintained all their memories of prior lives. A part of their soul called a power core made this possible.

Unfortunately one day, a long long time ago, the Gods and Goddesses began to die. Nobody was sure why, but the sickness caused their power core to degrade. If something wasn't done, then reality would collapse because its guardians were not present to maintain its balence. Something had to save the gods or the whole of creation would die.

It was a goddess of music, not some impressive and charismatic god of medicine or goddess of death. No, it was Benten of Japanese myth that discovered the solution. Death.

If there were no more Gods or Goddesses to pass on their genetic material, the powercores would simply enter the most compatible mortal host and become mortals. Humans. The race would die, but their power would not. But before an entire race committed harikiri steps had to be done. They needed a skeleton crew of gods and goddesses to monitor the transfer, and they needed people able to watch over the transfer once the last of the gods were gone.

Four races were created almost entirely from scratch, bioengineered for only one purpose, take over for the gods until the gatekeepers rose to power. Each given power over a single fucntion of creation. Death, space, mind and Time. Yes, the Timelords were one of these. Originally meant to be servents and slaves of the gods, the first Timelords were lead by Omega, and began to care for the new generation of peoples and monitor the transfer from god to gatekeeper.

But before Benten and her remaining crew began their transfer a problem arose, without certain gods and goddesses around, the fabric of reality would collapse faster than the transfer could be made. They realized their mistake after trying to transfer the Four Sacred Beasts. A dragon with control over water, a tiger with control over air, a phoenix with power over fire and a turtle with power over earth. These four made the laws of physics work, and the mistake nearly cost the lives of both Benten's skeleton crew and the members of the Four Races working with them, indeed the world.

The immediate reaction was to plant their power cores in a mortal immediately. No reincarnation in between. Each of the four races sacrificed one member to the Sacred Beasts, the Timelords sent Rassilon, one of their youngest and most promising minds, to sacrifice to Seiryuu, the dragon of wisdom with complete control over water. The relationship between beast spirit and timelord was a symbiotic one, and the Gatekeepers worked out a system for future "Celestial Dragons" as the hosts of these beasts came to be called. The spirits would change hosts every 100 years, with no preference shown for species. And each absorbed the knowledge and experiences of those who came before.

There is nothing more potent than a Timelord with an idea. And Rassilon was not content to be a servent of the gatekeepers forever. He made a bargain with Benten, if he could find a way to protect the Gods and Goddesses and the gatekeepers themselves, without the First Races around, the Timelords and the other three races would have their freedom. Decades and finally Shield Station arose, the first stationary base and the last line of defense against an enemy invasion. Clever as every legend told him to be, Rassilon set Shield Station in a Pocket Dimension, and scattered other pocket dimensions for the gods and goddesses to inhabit. A wormhole lead into the pocket dimension where shield station was located, and a second wormhole lead from the space station into the realm of the gods and goddesses. At random increments of time, the location of the entry wormhole would change at random to a new universe. But unpredictability was not the only defense. On shield station most forms of telepathy were dampened, the shields were heavily strengthened, the outer hull plated with the heaviest armor that could be found. Rather than excessively add weapons stations, the gods and goddesses themselves could attack or defend the station as they wished. And certain gatekeepers with a talent for telepathic control of machines could take control of the weapons systems and defend the station with a flick of the hand and a special harness. The ancient technician focusing more on endurance than offensive power, decided that wisely placed resources, endurance and unpredictability would set the tone of tactics used by subsequent generations of the burgeoning ranks of gatekeepers. Seiryuu absorbed all the knowledge he could from the most powerful of Timelords before he changed hands, the wealth of information making him ringleader and most powerful of the other four spirits.

Rassilon's work done, the Timelords withdrew to Galifrey and over subesquent generations of their species, knowledge of their former slavery to the gods was lost. As well, the humans and gatekeepers didn't need the Timelords directly interfering in their affairs.

Civilization began to develop as it should, all over the multiverse. Many earths, many worlds, many lives and generations passed until the year 2000. A team of four gatekeepers began to gather strength. Nicknamed the Suicide Squad for the difficulty of their missions and the burial of their former identities, Delphine Sterns, ZP, Feralae Wildeye, and Lucas Fullmoon gathered strength.

But their strength waned when Feralae disappeared and Delphine was named to the rank of Guardians who stood at the Gates of Time, never leaving, meant to guard the timestream wherever there was an opening. The timelords were preoccupied with the Dahleks, and none of them had guarded the Gateway for centuries. ZP had loved Feralae with all her heart, and with her koibito presumed dead, she fell into her laboratory to experiment and into great grief and depression. With his comrades gone, Lucas, being a kitsune spirit, faded away into the wilds of undiscovered lands.

Feralae's death had been faked, as she was chosen for the gatekeeper's highest office, one that required Feralae Wildeye to die, permanently. Pulling the strings from the shadows, she guided a new generation of gatekeepers as they entered basic training late in the year 2004. Katry was an Inu tai-yokai of a species known as Hellhounds. Kailai was a seventeen year old daughter of two gatekeepers, one Texan, one native to her home city of Atlanta, and who was almost too old to be considered for apprenticeship. Jazra was a puerto rican bombshell from New England with an aggression problem and a massive extended family.

Gwen Waverider was the fourth, a schoolfriend of Jazra's and a very sickly girl at the start, her left arm was so weak that she could barely lift a sword. The brace meant to stabilize her arm fed painkillers directly into her body and used a specially formulated anesthetic directly into the nerve. Both functions done by nanites.

But the brace was a very very frail thing, frought with programming errors and shoddy workmanship. And very much like Jazra, Gwen had issues with aggression. Delphine had gone MIA to try and escape her duties, and Gwen and her sensei were sent to find her. Her first battle, the person she was fighting had been approached by Delphine for help, and had mocked her and Gwen's concern in Delphine's welfare. Because of the mockery, Gwen flew into a rage and was hit with a lightning technique at point blank. Her hair was permanently singed black, her eyes faded from vivid green to pale jade with the pupils almost invisible. Her brace was fused to her arm, and her nervous system.

Creative by nature, Gwen discovered something interesting, the newly fused brace could control, break, or scan computer systems, just by thinking what she wanted it to do. The ability was limited, but deserved more training. And her powers were growing, indeed they skyrocketed when she became the new Host for Seiryuu.

Several months later and more confident in her abilities, Gwen picked a fight with a bigger cybernetic fish. The nanites in the brace were corrupted, crystalizing her arm into living metal. She should have, and would have died then if ZP had not been called, along with Major Motoko Kusanagi of Section 9, to fix the problem. Her left arm was fully cybernetic, and ZP was placed in charge of her training. Major Kusanagi accidentally uncovered an interesting piece of information. Gwen's father Takato had been one of the first members of section 9, and adopted son of Daisuke Aramaki, its leader. Now deceased, Gwen wanted desperately to trace her lineage.

Over the next couple of years, Gwen pursued the missing Delphine and underwent basic training with her fellow Celestial Dragons, Jazra to Byakko the jade tiger, Katry to Suzaku the black phoenix, and Kailai to Genbu the stone turtle. Her control over computers was effortless, childsplay, instinct. She controlled water as naturally as she breathed, able to slay an opponent by the snap of a finger and exploding their bodies from the inside. Her spiritual energy skyrocketed and her control over it became effortless.

Delphine returned, just in time to help with the creation of a new Gatekeeper Base located in the Grand Canyon. The Earth of the dimension they were in repeatedly experienced incidents of both the supernatural and the extraterrestrial. A few extra phenomena would not be noticed. But Gwen got her heart broken. She'd fallen in love with Delphine. Seiryuu was a passionate creature to have in your soul, and as Celestial Dragons typically do, he created a telepathic bond between Gwen and Delphine. Further, celestial dragons could breed with anything, even normally incompatible species, even the same gender, hellfire, the person's body didn't even have to be organic as long as their original spiritual pressure was intact. Gwen concieved a child with Delphine on the same eve that Delphine was sent on a mission, the artifact she was sent to retrieve caused a split. There was an evil Delphine, named Dexelphine or Dex looked identical to Del. Delphine was reduced to a sickly and underfed child, and would die in a few years if she was not reunited with her darkside.

Unaware of the change, Gwen was unable to tell the difference between Del and Dex. Dex posed as Delphine, and at just the right moment she raped Gwen. The attack was violent, and resulted in Gwen losing the baby. Even after they were reunited, Delphine was unable to look Gwen in the eye. She had absorbed the memory of what Dex did along with the rest of her darkside. It was the end of any hope the two might have had of a relationship. Gwen covered her scars in tattoos to try and protect herself and Delphine from the pain.

And Gwen was about to meet destiny. At long last she was allowed to meet her grandfather, Daisuke Aramaki, and fight alongside Section 9 just the way her father had. But something went wrong, and an evil AI locked away by Aramaki ages before broke free of its seal inside the Net. Known as the Shadow Hacker, it planned to spread a computer virus through the minds of all the technopaths serving the gatekeepers. If this happened, the art of technopathy would become extinct. True technopaths were rare, a delicate and valuable comodity for an organization accustomed to swords, magic and other relics of a bygone era. In the struggle Gwen activated a long dormant Gatekeeper ability that allowed her to change to a species that she'd been in a former reincarnation. There were many that could have been pulled from the depths of death, including the Crusnik of Trinity Vatican, the Timelords of legend, and other species long extinct, but it was the power of shinigami that she drew. She had become a Shiketsu, a pureblood shinigami of the species known and made famous in the anime Bleach.

She grabbed the attention of commander general Yamamoto Genryuusai, and when her talent became clear he began to plan for how to bring Gwen into the ranks of the Gotei 13 captains. Gwen's search for her father's origins lead her to Aizen, and the horrible experiment that Aizen was running turned the souls of deceased children into Arrancar. The shinigami were outraged, and the Gatekeeper's reaction was swift. Aizen was one of their numbers and experimenting on children incurred violent consequences.

Aizen was "world shackled," restrained. He lost the ability to travel between worlds and in the three day siege that followed soon after most of his empire crumbled. Yamamoto set a trap for Gwen. Sending 200 members each of the 3rd, 9th and 5th divisions into the battle, he hoped to procure a new captain by rite of blood, an honor taken only by 11th captain Kenpachi Zaraki. The Celestial dragon did far better than Yamamoto had hoped, slaying 9th Espada Aeroneiro Arleri, fighting 6th Espada Grimmjow Jaegerjaques to a draw and finally entering into battle with Kaneme Tousen, former captain of the 9th division. Gwen was the reincarnation of Tousen's older sister, who had willed Suzumushi to him upon her death. Because of this, she was able to break Tousen's bankai. A victim of her own strength, Gwen mortally wounded Tousen. It took two weeks for the former captain to die, during which time Yamamoto temporarily reinstated his rank, giving the dying captain voting power as to a successor. Gwen was named 9th division captain in waiting, without her knowledge, but could only become a captain when she died and became a full fledged shinigami.

And Gwen fell in love again, marrying both ZP and Motoko and telepathically bonding with them both. She soon had a daughter and a son. Her wish for a family was granted, and her attachment to ZP and Major became deep.

At the same time, signs of a traitor among the gatekeepers began to rise. The evidence piled up but with no one to interpret it. Benten desperately wanted Ryuuzaki, the greatest detective ever to live and made famous by the anime Deathnote to join their side. But with Kira on the rampage, and out for Ryuuzaki's blood, the gatekeepers would have to fake Ryuuzaki's death in order to save him. Removing L, Watari and Rem was Gwen's job, and she was given the rank of 13th division lieutenant, a rank she held for the remainder of her mortal life. Complicating the proceedure, Light and Misa both, Arrancar and Espada of centuries future, were thrown back in time. Arrancar Light wanted nothing more than to undo what he'd done and live a happy life with Ryuuzaki. But the damage he had done as Kira was so severe that the "Kira Years" had become a fixed event in time. He could do nothing.

A wise timelord would tell you that there's a difference between historical destiny and personal destiny. Arrancar Light took his personal destiny in hand, and as one of that rare 3 percent of male arrancar who could bear children, he purposefully got pregnant from Ryuuzaki and then relocated to Konohagakure and Tsunade's medical care and political asylum. It was there that his and Ryuuzaki's descendants eventually became a ninja clan of their own. And when Gwen saved and returned Ryuuzaki to his beloved Light Yagami, she became aware of a problem of her own.

ZP was ailing. Several times in her life she had become dangerously ill and after a near fatal wound sustained in a civil war on her world, ZP was both blind, lame and worse, declining in health. Major's missions were getting more and more dangerous. As a young woman pregnant with her first child, newly minted over a year ago as a shinigami, forced into confinement as her preganncy neared its end, she had dreamed of everything she was and would be, from birth to death. No human can handle that kind of burden, and most shinigami cannot either. As it was the events forseen had been reduced to symbols, flashes of light and sound, voice and a headlong plunge through her Zanpakuto's inner world. The doctor would later refer to the vision as a curse passed through the generations of Celestial dragons from Seiryuu's time bonded to Rassilon, indeed divining spells always came easily to the shinigami. In that same dream she had dreamed of her loss of ZP and Major.

The enemy, Ivan, showed his face and war broke out. Gwen had many children with ZP and Major, looked after by her father's spirit, the lost bloodrelative now also a shinigami. Aizen's empire fell and shortly after ZP was forced to sacrifice herself for her people. Major was slain in the line of duty leaving Gwen both depressed and suicidal. These were not a good combination, especially when combined with Gwen's hairtrigger temper. Ivan, the enemy and traitor, was captured and executed. His bases were in ruins, his followers scattered. Gwen had little else to live for now, her job was done, she could fall into the monotony of peace time and grow old and die. Her sense of duty did not permit her to commit suicide, and she was terrified of taking her destined place among the shinigami captains.

One last evil of Aizen's reign returned, previously incapacitated and in a coma for years, Szayel awoke to discover Aizen's empire gone. Instead he sought to ressurect the dead shinigami to rise again. He was certain that Ivan's ruined facilities held the answer. When word reached Gwen of Szayel's attempts to return Aizan to life, she chased him down with a serious case of what Policemen refer to as 'tunnel vision.' While she slew Szayel, Gwen sacrificed her life to do so. Her dead spirit returned to Soul Society and disappeared.

An abridged and heavily edited version of Gwen's adventures, minus the gatekeeper parts, had made its way into the archives of the Timelords vast store of knowledge. And 500 years later Gwen was bored and grieved. She returned to her birth name of Sakura, embraced her role of captain of the gotei 13, and out of despair she had been the cause of so much change in the Soul Society that she and her descendants had risen to the status of nobility. her friends had all passed into the soul society with her, and were restless in their retirement.

Delphine was immortal, and growing bored at her vigil over the Gates of Time. There was only one gate guardian left besides her, and they both had loved ones in the mortal realm waiting for them. Sakura's loyalty to Delphine had remained unwavering since her childhood, and so one night Delphine used her gift of foresight to tell Sakura a secret. "You are in no way obligated to take a task normally handled by your subordinates, but if you take the evening patrol you will discover somebody very important. Bring him to your compound as a guest of your clan."

The world Sakura had grown up in was the same as ours, with the ordinary television series about the Doctor and his companions, about Torchwood and their charismatic leader Jack Harkness. The sound of the Tardis' appearance took her a few minutes to recognize, as it came back cutting through centuries and centuries of irritation and despair and misery. The excited reception of the Doctor in Soul Society raised a great stir, and Sakura carefully blessed and sealed a space in the family shrine for Doctor to park the Tardis in.

For the next several days Doctor followed Sakura around her duties as a shinigami captain. Then Delphine requested his assistance, and would the Doctor take turns guarding the timestream with herself and her relief guard, Setsuna. Just as Sakura had so many years ago Doctor valued his freedom. Why should he stand guard over the flow of time for all eternity? He had worlds to see, companions to travel with, even recovering his grief over losing Donna he refused to give up his freedom.

Sakura made a proposal, "How are your companions doing these days Doctor? I heard Rose was getting restless over being trapped. Martha has become a soldier and siezed her own destiny. Jack is glued to his team, but they're /torchwood/ for crying out loud! Sarah Jane is getting old. And Donna, well, how's she doing? I'll make a bargain with you Doctor. If you will help Delphine, then I will travel with you for a year. I am not so easily trapped, coerced, or injured, and I am 400 years younger than you. Age is no difficulty. I am very strong, after my year is up I will be proud and honored to become bodyguard to you and your beloved companions. What do you say Doctor? I'm getting /bored/ in retirement."

Doctor accepted Sakura's proposal, though for what reasons the shinigami was never sure, and began to familiarize himself with the Soul Society and its inhabitants. It was, maybe 48 hours later that the shuttle crashed through the dimensional barrier, leaving Jenny with a broken spaceship, concussion and several broken bones, the mark of the God of Time, Chronos, meant that she was the new gatekeeper savant, the proxy for the greek god of time in the mortal realm. It was an important duty, and an honorable position.

Jenny was taken immediately to the 4th division for emergency treatment, and Sakura celebrated the reunion between Timelords. But one more duty remained for the day. New graduates from the shinigami academy were now deciding what division to enter. Among them the restless souls of one Rose Tyler and one Martha Jones.

The tradition was for shinigami captains and their lieutenants to give a speech and a display of their abilities. Sakura had taken Ichigo Kurosaki as her lieutenant, and between them a fireworks display wowed the crowd. Normally a speech about honor and duty and hard work would have sufficed. But the Doctor planted a spark in her that day and something Sakura said caught the attention of one blonde ex companion in the crowd, her speech being about the will to defend, and the love of home, of world and of loved ones that becomes the true strength of a shinigami in battle.

Then too, the Doctor was watching from the edge of the stage, /almost/ hidden. Not enough for Rose though! When the display concluded the former companion tried desperately to reach Doctor. But crowds have a funny way of seperating people. But her mind was made up, Rose choose the 9th division as hers.

The next day they were planning a welcome party for the new members of 9th division. Ichigo and Karin were finished preparing the courtyard for the bash. Sakura was running late, she'd stayed up most of the night drinking with Kyouraku and Doctor and did not have the same alcohol tolerance as the older captain or timelord, who were much much older than her. And then Grimmjow had come to visit and they'd had such a lovely time back in the shinigami captain's suite, and the combination of alcohol and sex ensured that the 9th Captain was late! Late! She was hosting the party for crying out loud!

But one more figment from Doctor's past had a bone to pick. Sakura had a standing tradition that if a new graduate could beat her in a shikai only sparring match, they could have one thing that was in Sakura's power to give. Martha intended on making use of that tradition. Hungover and still hyped up on hormones from an all nighter with Grimmjow Sakura was mortified, amused and excited when the former Companion named her prize, a kiss from the legendary 9th Captain Sakura Ryuunami.

Due to the hangover the former companion not only won, but turned a kiss into a makeout session in broad daylight before tailing Sakura (who by now was only thinking of her escape,) to the party. Doctor, Rose and Martha were reunited. Martha was in the 4th division, named to the 5th position. Sakura decided that a companion in her division had already proven her strength and was proud to name Rose her 4th seat.

that takes me about to the start of the fic. Please, please, please do not crucify me for crossing so many shows with the awesomeness of Doctor Who. ;.; I can't help it, my imagination is way, way way, too overactive! And i have to give credit for ZP and Delphine to Delphine. Lucas doesn't appear in this fic, but he helped with creating gatekeepers as well. (bows) Please do not crucify. XD after this is the fic.


	2. Chapter 2

The shadowed figure peered out of her study window at the starfield beyond, the woman's long hair shimmering faint rust color in the dim light. She was bent over a journal, hand paused with the pen in hand. Then she began to write, words sweeping over the page in a sharp, angular script.

_'Gatekeepers, interdimensional keepers of the peace. They've been around since the beginning of human civilization, their adventures spawning myths on six continents stretching the barest stirrings of human civilization to the present. Not just in the world I came from, but everywhere, every dimension, every world. No part of existance hasn't been touched by them in some way._

_'Shield Station, where I have spent the past 5 centuries, is in a secluded pocket dimension, shielded from invasion or harm. Its home to the gatekeeper's governing body, as well as their most advanced equipment, their central communications systems, and their best medical facilities. It guards the portal to the realm of the gods, and the yawning mouth of the wormhole dominates the starscape above the station. The first permanent base and last line of defense for the gatekeepers teeters on the very edge of existance, in the place where all the dimensions come together._

_'I've lived for five centuries, yet, you could say I've died along the way as well. I was.... never the kind to think things over before I do them. Ironic the amount of time I have to think up here. As a member of the shield council, its almost as if I'd been chained to this wheel turning in the stars, nothing to hear but my hearts beating, nothing to hear my mind scream in frustration but metal corridors that stretch for ages. Let me go! Let me free! Screams over and over in my head._

_'A smiling face, as /he/ enfolds me in his grip. The world goes black, I sleep for so long, and then he's gone. He's gone and I'm stuck and I can't find him again! I begged him not to leave me behind._

_'But that's the Doctor for you, never, ever chained down, never in one place for long, you can't catch up to him, he catches up to you._

_'I would have followed him forever, until the last of the stars burned out. Fate was cruel and kind in the same breath. But I would rather have died, knowing his name, his face, remembering the journey we took across creation, then live an empty existance not knowing the beauty that lay out there before me._

_'Donna Noble, the name I've clung to for 500........"_ The woman flung the journal across the room and screamed. Tears streamed from her eyes, frustration, despair, anguish. "You had to leave me behind.......... and leave me stuck......."

The clock to the right of the desk read, 12 midnight (local) and above it a second glowing dial 3 am, London. The woman swept from the room, form still wreathed in shadow. A long leather jacket trailing behind her as she strode to the observation lounge. "Urahara............"

"Hey, I'm sorry if I woke you up."

"I couldn't sleep anyway, and I found you, remember?" Donna sighed. "I can't sleep."

"The dream again?"

"no........ it just...... it feels as if something is wrong, somewhere......."

"Yeah, well we'll have a ton of work to deal with soon, the final casualty count came in for the eruption at Ista Weyr." Urahara began. "Its not good, all the queens dead, most of the bronzes are gone, and all the Weyrfolk. A few weyrlings escaped, they were senior rank, their Weyrlingmaster was out taking them for thier first between, lesson. Then we have the damage report the collapse of Central into the ground. The library, the main one, might be salvagable. But the sum of generations of alchemists work may have been destroyed. And any state alchemist within the city limits is dead. The others are trying desperately to look for survivors and provide medical care to the few who made it out. But half the state military is in shock. I hear Roy Mustang got drunk in his lab at 12th, he's been almost catatonic for over a week."

"Don't tell me, I don't want to know." Donna muttered quietly. "I went to Ista, a long time ago...... it was.... horrible what happened. And Roy's a good man, he didn't deserve it." Then she threw her arms around Urahara and clung. "its as if everything is falling to pieces. Nothing is getting better. Life on the surface was doing so well."

"Okay, something's really wrong now. Normally if I lay a finger on you you beat me over the head wi.......... hey, whats wrong?"

Donna was crying. "Him, he's somewhere in this when. I can sense him. He should KNOW i'm here! They can....... /we/ can sense each other. Why hasn't he come?" She sobbed quietly. "Why can't he hear me calling for him?"

Urahara sighed, wrapping an arm around the distraught woman. "Donna, Shield station is just that, shielded. There could be a hundred timelords here or there could be none, he STILL wouldn't be able to sense you."

"I think I'm going to scream."

"Don't scream, have a drink. You wouldn't have saught me out if there wasn't a reason." Urahara scooped the woman up and dropped her in one of the chairs. "Honestly Donna, you think too much about some things and don't think about others!" Urahara bustled over to a nearby bar. "Sake?"

"You know I hate the stuff. Benden? That white wine from ten years back? That was a good year." Donna sounded exhausted.

Urahara brought the white wine Donna had mentioned, and eyed her as he served it. "Now now, your face looks longer than an elephant's! Didn't Washu say good wine is best served with laughter?"

"There's something wrong.......... and its not now, its then." Donna said quietly. "I keep thinking of...... then, and keep thinking that something's gone wrong. I wake up with my hearts hammering in my ears and I can't think or focus."

Urahara set his familiar green and white hat on the table. "Very often, Timelords can sense when something's amiss. Its an instinct. You knoooooowwww........... you can send him a message? Asking him to check if all is well? Unfortunately, the only remaining tardises are in the Doctor and the Master's possetion. I know you can't contact the doctor directly just yet, and truely the Master would tear you apart if you tried to take his ship............ but you /can/ send a riddle? Feel like trying to capture the curiousity of a timelord with 400 years on you?"

"I want to see him, one more time, and yet I don't........" Donna sighed. "What do I say to him? Hi, your seal failed to protect me. But I'm here anyway. Oh no you can't see me! You're not allowed to! Absolutely bonkers, out of the question!"

Urahara raised his glass to the woman sitting across the table. "To donna noble, the absolutely /bonkers/ lady of the timelords." He cocked an eyebrow, trying to coax a laugh from her. "You know, an old friend of mine desperately needs a vacation. Did you ever take a peek down at Soul Society from here? Did you ever see my friend Sakura? Sakura Ryuunami? Hmmm, and I need to follow up on your hunch. If something has gone wrong in the past, Delphine and Setsuna might know."

"Yeah, just wizard aint it? I can finally keep up with him, but Doctor thinks I'm long gone to the grave. But I'm stuck here........ I can't leave the station." She squared her shoulders, sipping the wine. "I haven't met your friend, no. I don't want to dwell on death, its depressing. I'd much rather figure out how to let him know that I'm even /alive/. How do you propose we contact her?"

"I haven't met a timelord who does......" Urahara smirked, waving his fan airily. "Right, this is what we do......."

* * *

"What's this? Yamamoto-sama?" Sakura Ryuunami asked, as she was called to the center of the shinigami captains. She took the file she'd been handed.

"Firelizard dispatch from shield station. It was given the highest priority, to be delivered to Sakura Ryuunami, captain shinigami 9th division. And look at the letterhead."

"That's Urahara." Sakura said quietly. Kisuke Urahara was the former twelfth division captain of the gotei 13. Shinigami had divided their military into 13 Court Guard Squads, The stealth force, the kido corps and the staff of the shinigami academy. Each squad had a specialty, 4th was medical, 10th was diplomacy, 11th was heavy combat, and 12th was technology. Recently, the 9th division, Sakura's had been named the Civil Engineering division. Truely? Sakura had been doing Civil Engineering work for almost as long as she'd been its captain.

No technician in the soul society, where the shinigami lived, had EVER been as powerful as Urahara, either in acumen, intelligence or Personality. He was the Doctor of the shinigami, larger than life, clever as a fox, and he managed to look good doing it too.

"The gatekeepers yanked him away for years, had him flitting on and off shield station between his duties at the academy. I believe this may have something to do with why he's been taken up there."

"Lucky duck Sakura-chan, you get all the plum assignments." Shunsui Kyouraku chuckled, 8th division captain, tipping his rice straw hat to the 9th captain. "First doctor's body guard and then a trip to the station? tsk you are popular again!" Charming, with a long head of black hair and a flamboyant pink coat over his captain's haori, Shunsui Kyouraku was one of the oldest captains, about 800 years or so, and along with his classmate, Jyoushiro Ukitake had the most senoirity of all but the Commander General.

"If you need anything from the Stealth force, simply ask." Soi Fong, the second division captain and leader of the stealth force was a severe woman, blueblack hair bound in white bandages and loops, giving her a wild, if sullen appearance.

"I could care less what you're up to." Kurotsuchi snapped. Urahara's successor, Kurotsuchi was well known for his sadistic personality and for having modified his own body for combat. He was night to Urahara's day, he knew his predecessor was better than he was, and HATED him for it.

"Sakura, if you're going to the station could you please let the Medical officer know that I'm waiting on that new scanning equipment?" Unohana asked. Division 4 captain Unohana was the calm, down to earth, very accomplished head medical officer for the entirety of the Seireitei fortress and the shinigami that inhabited it. "And make sure the Healer Hall gets our proposal for trade, our last numbweed crop was absymol. It always seems to grow better in the living world. Right along with coffee and chocolate."

One by one the captains started to chatter among themselves, speculating about what Urahara could want the 9th captain for. what could the message contain? What could Urahara want suddenly sending a summons to her out of the blue? Did it have something to do with the Healer staying at the Ryuunami compaound? Not healer! Doctor! There was a difference!

"Sakura-chaaaan! Open it!" Kyouraku whined at last. "What's inside?"

Sakura unfolded the parchment. "Jibberish. Lookit this, the character for memory with an hourglass over top. This rune is cuniform for danger, or peril. This is the greek numeral for 27, an arrow leading away from it. After 27? Then an arrow, and a crown. and another arrow here points to Urahara shoten's symbol, plus the kanji 7 and N.S.S. And at the bottom, look at this, Cardif wales, year 2008. Easling, London year 2008."

"what a bore." Kyouraku sighed as the meeting was adjourned. "Amagai! A moment! I'm hoping you could nail down the date for that joint drill. Sakura if you'll excuse me."

"Sakura." That was Ukitake. "Whatever Urahara wants of you, take that to the Doctor. And........ good luck with the new recruits." Ukitake was Sakura's captain back when she was an officer. When he was younger, and Ukitake was one of the oldest captains in the Gotei 13, tuberculosis turned his hair pure white in three days. After which, despite no longer being contaigious, Ukitake still showed physical damage from the disease. His lungs were weaker, requireing rest and treatment periodically. However, he was known for his cool head, sense of fairplay, and wise leadership.

Sakura thought she had a very good idea what Urahara was up to......... but why? "Thanks, I just need to pass the schedule for our joint drill to my dad. You know he needs to get out of 5th more." Sakura hurried out, her father had taken leadership of 5th after the death of Aizen and the fracture of his empire. Grimmjow had control of Hueco Mundo now, with his mate Ulquiorra. Sakura had been liason between Seireitei and los Noches ever since the fall of Aizen. Of course, peace was one of the benefits of their..... friendship.

* * *

The blonde shinigami wearing a student's robes sat across from Yoruichi in her front room. "Well that's brazen of you Tyler. You know Shunko takes as long to learn as it takes to gain bankai? And you've JUST receieved the final grades for your graduation exam."

Yoruichi Shihouin, head of the shihouin clan, one of the Four Great Shinigami clans, and former captain of the stealth force, was a busty, vibrant woman with dark skin and long purple hair. Yoruichi had the unique ability to change into a black cat. In her own right, Yoruichi was as much a Legend as Urahara. She was known as the "Goddess of Flash" for her speed in battle. She was the one who had taught Soi Fong, she taught Ichigo Kurosaki, now the 9th division lieutenant. She taught the 9th division captain, Sakura Ryuunami as well. She and Urahara were childhood friends.

"You managed to teach Ichigo bankai in 2 days." Rose colored. "And Sakura in the same amount of time." Bankai, shinigami swords, known as Zanpakuto were a living part of their souls. Each had a name, and a spirit form. Ichigo's was an old man, Renji Abarai's (6th Division lieutenant) zanpakuto Zabimaru was a nue, a Japanese chimera. Sakura's was a knight in shining armor. And Rose's zanpakuto, the blade portion of which looked like a ritual knife of the ancient Celts, Kokebara Yuretsu's spirit was a maiden priestess, a druidress armed with a bow and dressed in flowing midnight robes.

All zanpakuto had two stages through which they could evolve. Shikai was the most common of these, changing the weapon instantly into a weapon that would suit the user. Bankai was far more difficult. It was said that bankai took 10 years of training and then ten years of practice, to achieve and learn how to use. It wasn't well known, but Yoruichi and Urahara knew a method to reach bankai within 3 days. The reason why it wasn't well known was because if they had not achieved Bankai by the end of three days then the person making the attempt would die.

"Yeah, both of them shinketsu with volatile spiritual pressures. Then too, a zanpakuto can interact with its owner. Kidou interacts with nothing except what its meant to destroy." Yoruichi explained. "And shunko, if improperly executed can tear you apart. What were your kidou grades like, _graduate_ Rose Tyler? If you mess up your training your riatsu will hemmorage until your soul chain and sleep shatter. Poof! No more shinigami for you!" The grin on the Shihouin lady's face was huge.

In the intervening 500 years since Ichigo and his friends saved Karakura from Aizen, Yoruichi and Urahara had been allowed to return to the Seireitei, Tessai as well. While they could never be returned to their posts, Yamamoto had offered the three of them teaching positions at the shinigami academy.

"Top rate!" The newly graduated shinigami sputtered. "I got A's! All four terms, all six years. Check the records if you don't be........."

WHOOSH, Yoruichi was suddenly leaning over Rose with a huge grin on her face, pressing a finger to her lips to silence her. "Chirp chirp, oh my, there must be a sparrow lose somewhere in the Dojo. Tsk, such a silly bird." Yoruichi teased the blonde girl the way she had Soi Fon, a long, long, long time ago. "Alriiiiiight then Rose Tyler, sokyouku hill in one week's time. After breakfast, if you're late or hungry I won't teach you." She purred, face glowing smugly. "After all, how can a sparrow think about fighting if its stomach is empty?"

Rose blushed. "Thank you!" Yoruichi was one of those colorful characters that had /no/ sense of degree. She treated everyone, captain and student and all ranks in between the same way. Her expression lively, and Yoruichi had BEEN there to teach Rose's advanced placement Kidou for the last two years of her training at the shinigami academy. In some ways, the tanned woman reminded her vaguely of the Doctor.

Yoruichi had seen her manage hado, attack type kidou that some grown MEN of six centuries had trouble with, and she was /fast/ in using them. Nor had any of her classmates ever been able to break out of her bakudo, restraining kidou. Her shunpo had been top of her class as well, though she hadn't scored very well in swordsmanship. She was on level, powerwise, with most seats, but was inexperienced enough with her shinigami powers that she would require some serious training to get comfortable with some of the other techniques employed by shinigami in combat.

And Shunko was one of the most difficult techniques to master. Rose was clever though, Yoruichi had no doubt that the girl would be able to learn the technique properly.

* * *

"So this place is called Soul Society?" Jenny asked as Hanatarou threw the windows in her hospital room open.

4th division 7th seat Hanatarou Yamada was a rather........... dopey, looking young man. Sweet, innocent and naive. His healing kidou was his only real talent, but he had a good heart and a loyal personality. He was, however, rather gullible, his birthday was even on April Fools day!

"Yes, this is where human souls go when they've passed on. Other beings visit here when they aren't dead though, Miss Timelord. No need to be worried." The droopy medic added hastily. "You aren't among the deceased."

"You don't need to 'Miss' me, its Jenny, just Jenny." The girl beamed. "My ship, did the shinigami find it?"

"Yeah, its kinda, tied up though. Captain Ryuunami removed it from the crash site and put it under lockdown. I saw her talking with Tessai about what kidou to use to seal it." He frowned. "Something about not wanting Captain Kurotsuchi to get it. She did the same to the Doctor's Tardis, she fixed it so that only she and Doctor could get inside the seal."

"DAD'S HERE? And who's this Captain Ryuunami, I need to get my ship back?! I have to hurry before dad runs away again!" Jenny cried, Hanatarou's eyes, unfortunately crossed and he fell over. "What did I do?"

"He's always like that." A pink haired woman giggled as she entered. "He always scares easily. I'll take you to captain ryuunami's room. I'm Sakura, its easy to remember because I share my name with the Captain." She sighed. "You might not be able to get to her right now though, she's holding a party for new graduates who want to join her division." Sakura moved to right Hantarou. "Hanatarou you goof, you're so cute."

"You won't be able to get to Captain Ryuunami for a few days at least! After the party she's going up to the station!"

"The station?"

"Shield station. Its in a pocket dimension, real small. Its a space station." Sakura explained. "The best medical and scientific laboratories, the best defenses, the gatekeeper's governing body, they're all up there. And the members of the shield council are all kept a secret. I've only met two of them in the whole time I've been a gatekeeper. Counting the time after I died that's almost as long as Captain Ryuunami. Seth Nightroad is the Empress of an entire nation, and Washu is a goddess with a scientific acumen that's almost as good as Urahara's. A long time ago, the shinigami Rem and the Head Archivist Watari went up there as well. But Watari is long dead, and Rem was........ absorbed, by 9th Espada Misa Amane's hollow form, she sacrificed herself for her. The place is an interplanetary Fortress, it has to be.........

"Oh wonderful. Ah well.........." Jenny looked out the window, "Mind giving me a tour then Sakura?" She asked, arching an eyebrow winningly.

"Sure, I'll just check you out with Captain Unohana." Sakura smiled, before happily tweeking Hanatarou between the eyes. "You blush too much Hanatarou."

The dopey medic turned scarlet. "Th...... thanks Sakura......." And fainted the instant Timelord and Kunoichi were out of the room.

* * *

"I never thought we'd finish for the evening." Sakura chucked her haori onto the couch in her office and yawned. "Tea doctor?" She began sorting finished paperwork, then she added a note. "Ichigo, if you get to the officve before I do, make sure that the paperwork gets where it needs to go." she read as she wrote the note.

"thank you!" The doctor never looked harried to Sakura, but the female shinigami plunked herself on her favorite couch the instant tea was served. "you look tired......."

"I am /so/ glad to have Rose on board. Hell, how'd she decide to join 9th? did she smell you on the wind?"

"Aaaw, Rose will go where there's excitement, where people BELIEVE in what they do. You believe wholeheartedly in the work you've done. It shows all over. But I'm surprised, first Jenny, then Rose and Martha?"

Sakura laughed. "We're a clingy lot we gatekeepers, wanna learn the secret?"

"Oh go ahead."

"The bonds we make in each life, all those lovely mushy things that make humans human, love, grief, pain, joy, determination and pride, tenacity, ALL of it, links gatekeepers together. No matter how many times we're reincarnated and reborn, we'll find each other again." She said with a smug purr. "But /I/ have an assignment." She handed over the parchment given her. "I'm obviously, /not/ allowed to go to shield station automatically. I need to get clearance for us to go. But it loooooks, like we'll need to take the tardis back to your world. Not sure /what/ I'm wanted for."

"Easling? That's Sarah Jane's area." The Doctor frowned. "This Urahara character, what could he want there? Although Cardiff is easy. That's where Torchwood is. Urahara probably wants us to introduce you to Jack. Dunno what for though."

"I don't know, when I called him he said that a young lady asked him to pass along that message. Unfortunately, he /also/ said that she's a shield council member. They're kept almost completely under lock and key." Sakura sighed. "Its not a...... happy existance. We probably won't get to meet her."

"Soooooo........ how do we approach this?" Doctor asked her.

"We take the Tardis up to the shield station docking bay. Don't worry they'll keep it locked up tight for you. We probably won't be allowed to stay up there more than twelve hours. And very likely we won't be allowed into most portions of the station. If somebody says you can't go in, you can't go. Period end of story."

"Ooooooooooooh, but those are the best parts of a new place to visit!"

"Doctor, I'm serious." Sakura whined. "You'll get in big trouble if you go poking around."

"Yeah, but what's so secret about that place? Its a fortress! Sure its well defended, why so secret?"

"Its the edge of creation. Its the last vanguard, the final barricade that protects the world of the Gods. The Gods give the gatekeepers their power, their EXISTANCE supports the fabric of creation. Its defended from outside attack Doctor, VERY well so. Its nearly /impossible/ to find by chance. And Jenny found out what happened when you do. But it /is/ vulnerable to assasination and sabotage." Sakura insisted. "Its a hub for EVERY gate complex in the strand, you need to have a special code to get in. And yet at least half the high level assasinations in the gatekeeper's history have taken place in the STATION not planetside. To work up there for any given length of time you'd better be cuthroat strong or smart or fast, and you'd better demand hazard pay."

"Soooooooooo?"

"So don't go sneaking around!" Sakura sputtered. "Its really important!"

"Oh fine, you ruin all the fun."

* * *

The Tardis /finally/ got clearance for the ship bay for Shield Station, sawing into existance with the Doctor impatiently following Sakura's directions. "Alright...."

"SAKURA!" Urahara bellowed as the captain stepped out of the Tardis. His arms outstretched.

"Getaboshi! Urahara dear! Your firelizard was a little SPARE on details eh!" Sakura said as she beckned to the Doctor. "Urahara, Doctor, Doctor, Kisuke Urahara! Who seems to be enjoying a cooshy assignment eh?"

"Oh Sakura, always so green eyed?" Urahara said coyly, fanning himself.

"My eyes are normally green hat n' clogs." Sakura dopeslapped the old shopkeeper upside the head. "Silly goose." She felt it then, there was another riatsu, a powerful one, in the docking bay.

The Doctor grinned. "Now then, Urahara isn't it? Care to elaborate on your message?"

Sakura looked up, past Urahara. There was the faint flash of a leather coat, a rust haired figure fleeing the shuttle bay. One with a significantly high spiritual pressure. Volitile, old, powerful and defiant.

"Hmmmm, well.......... a friend of mine was in a bit of a tantrum." Urahara snickered. "A, rather rebellious dame asked me to contact you. That was her handwritting on the firelizard."

"You said Sarah Jane lives in Easling?" Sakura asked the Doctor.

"Yeah, but her handwriting is........ well..... loopy. Very curvy and ornate. This was angular and narrow. Not her pen."

"Yep, not Sarah jane's. At the point you're headed for, her son luke is undergoing evaluation. Has the power actually, didn't think Rukia would notice. OUR girl is already tapped, and you know that dear Sarah never had gatekeeper abilities. Its an inherited trait. Genetically /and/ spiritually inherited." Urahara gestured for Sakura and Doctor to follow him. "As for Cardiff, thats a favor from your dame in distress, I'll explain later."

"The place you're looking for, the gatekeepers had made contact with Sarah Jane and were attempting to coordinate the construction of a safehouse." Urahara explained. "They were planning safe areas in Cardiff and Manhatten as well, specifically targeting areas close to your allies in case they needed backup." Urahara yawned. "You're looking for somebody at the safehouse at Easling." He beckoned the two along. "Sorry, late night. follow me to the lounge. I could use a cup of tea."

Sakura could feel the spirtual pressure following them. "Urahara........" It was the woman she'd spotted leaving the hanger.

"Don't worry, no ambush." The ex shinigami captain snickered. "Somebody is shy." He sighed. "Aaah, but she deserves this reunion. She's waited forever and a day for it." He sighed. "She's been all on her lonesome all this time......"

At his smirk, the spiritual pressure skirted around them, taking a corridor paralell to theirs and darting away.

"I still haven't gotten used to 'sensing' presences." The Doctor sighed. "Other than the ability to sense other timelords. Who do you MEAN by she?" That last was curious.

"You'll seeeeee......" Urahara snickered, fluttering his fan in front of his face. "Oh and any specialized senses are blocked up here. Dampened. Spiritual pressure and chakra only." Urahara said lazily. "The station has all kinds of psychic scramblers and dampeners to hinder an assassin possibly finding a target!" He said smugly, with the air of a kid preparing to show his mother and father a new piece of fingerpainting pride. "Your ability to sense other timelords is blocked while you're up here. Thought I should warn you about that."

Sakura sighed. "That's /all/ you're going to get out of him Doc. Get used to it." Sakura rolled her eyes. "Urahara won't say anything until its time for it to be said. He's the shinigami equivalent of you."

The lounge was dimly lit, cool lighting and atmosphere. Meant to be comforting and quiet.

A lone figure, long brown leather jacket, rust hair, definately feminine, was seated at the far end, staring boredly out the window at the glowing starscape and the yawning mouth of the wormhole in space that lead to the realm of the gods. Her foot tapped restlessly on the floor.

The Doctor froze on the threshold. "Getaboshi, funny seeing you here." The woman commented boredly, not even looking up.

"You knew full well this was where I was headed." Urahara snickered. "Typical gaki........."

Donna turned around in the chair with a smug, if bitter smirk and a calculated and dramatic motion. "Long time, no see Doctor! I told you not to leave me behind!" She said crossly.

Doctor froze. "D...... donna? you....... know me? you remember?" He blanched, and head whipped from Urahara to Donna and back. "HOW........." He demanded, the look in his eyes was suspicious, and if Urahara didn't give him an answer......

But before he could get an answer, tears filling her eyes, Donna bolted and clung. She snuggled as close as she could get, the contact a comfort. "I've been stuck here for 500 years, they wouldn't let me go anywhere or see anybody! It was boring and lonely and I kept screaming for you to come back and you never did!!!!" She sobbed. "I called and called, over and over in my head and you didn't even hear me......."

"Five hundred.......... Called?" Doctor sputtered, freezing in place, eyes falling closed for a moment as he felt around the woman's aura. His face screwed up in anguish as he felt the pulse of two heartbeats beneath his fingers. "Oh Donna......... oh I'm so sorry..... I'm so sorry....." He cried, stroking Donna's hair comfortingly.

Sakura placed a gentle hand on Donna's back, and she too felt what the Doctor had sensed. Not one heartbeat, two. The shinigami captain withdrew, pulling back to watch. "I see, you as well. I'm so sorry............ i know what happens when your shield becomes your prison. Its so.... lonely and painful...."

"The doctor's seal was dissolved, completely." Urahara told the other shinigami. "The goddess Benten had to intervene, there was nothing we could do. It was simple. Change or die."

The Doctor wept, literally able to feel the redhead's pain. "The only way to save her life......."

"Was to change her into a timelord. TECHNICALLY the Doctor Donna was a previous incarnation. All gatekeepers have the ability to take on a genetic form, mutation, prior species, whatever, that they had in a previous life. Its permanent, drastic, lasting and in some cases takes months or even years to fully grasp. That's how Sakura became a shinigami. She was literally the reincarnation of Tousen's missing sister. That's how she got the better of him at the Siege of las Estrellas. But reaching only happens if the gatekeeper is in a life or death battle and under some kind of extreme distress. Survival of the fittest, its called Ancestral Reaching, it ensures that they're fit. We used it to save Donna."

The Doctor gave a small smile, resting his chin on Donna's head. "It must have been lonely."

"I knew you were out there. The.... the sense dampener only acts on those within its field. I could feel you, you just couldn't hear me." Donna sobbed. "I called over and over........." Sakura understood now, the strange rapport that Timelords had with each other. Donna had literally been screaming in telepathy for the Doctor, and he had been unable to hear her.

"And THAT, brings me to what I need the two of you to do. Donna's training is going to take time, you'd have to jump almost a decade after the seal was performed to get to where she changes. Your first priority......" Urahara cued the lounge screen. "This is Hueco Mundo, and this...... doctor, is your dimension here. See how far apart they are? To enter your universe from Hueco Mundo, a hollow would have to move through the tunnels between them. The journey would take months. BUT, torchwood's rift changes that. If a hollow tried to open a gargantua in Cardiff, they could do so with VERY little extra preparation. 500 years ago the late Sousuke Aizen sent a force to do just that. They started a hollow swarm in the area to build up forces. Sakura can take care of the hollows, but not Gin and the Espada that came with him. /You/ need to introduce her to Jack." Urahara smirked. "When you're done there, move on to Easling. The hollows will likely move on tattack Sarah Jane when they finish in Cardiff, she needs to be warned. The gatekeepers will have Donna there, but Doctor......."

"you can't see my past self." Donna warned. "It will break the seal too soon." She looked up at the Doctor. "If Sakura brings a message to Jack, something that he'll know instantly is from you, you might be able to get him to help you."

"I set that seal, remember?" The Doctor asked with a small smile. "I'll take care of it......"

"Alright, but first you need to help Jack. Trust me, you'll be coming out of the Tardis /literally/ in the middle of a firing range." Donna looked up at the Doctor. "And Aizen will have torn a gargantua wide open. It won't be pretty."

"We can go right now." Sakura winked. "It wouldn't do to keep a lady waiting." She said reassuringly. She bowed to Donna and offered her hand, kissing the Lady Timelord's hand delicately. Sakura smiled warmly and turned to Urahara. "Getaboshi, I'm going to need a gigai. One that matches my /current/ physical appearance."

"Good idea, if you're recognized by somebody from your past who knows you, they might call you Gwen by mistake. Torchwood has a 'Gwen Cooper' on their team. Saves confusion."

"WAIT!" Donna called, Sakura stopped. "Promise me that you'll protect Torchwood. They're walking into danger that they are NOT equipped to handle!" She sounded desperate. "Gin will tear them to shreds!"

Sakura turned and smiled. "Don't worry, I'll protect them. For you, for Martha and Rose and Doctor. I promise. I'll be sword and shield until journey's end." She sighed. "Doctor, bring me into the timeline with 48 hours to spare before the swarm starts. Gin will have sent scouts ahead. If I can take some of them out I might be able to lessen the impact."

"And after?" Donna asked worriedly.

"I promised the Doctor that I would continue to be sword and shield to any of his companions who needed anything I could give. That was my bargain with the Doctor." She tilted her head just a little. "Don't worry, Lady Noble. I'll protect your friends, I promise."

* * *

"You said just the right thing." Doctor told her as the Tardis rattled to life. "So.... to Cardiff then?"

"Yeah." Sakura gripped the rail. "Urahara gave me Nova before I go." She laughed, opening her bag for the turtle modsoul to poke his head out. "And this gigai." She laughed. "Donna said the coat was like Jack's, only his is blue and this one black. And instead of military bars, it has the markings of a gatekeeper's badge jacket. Back in the day this was the uniform for a Jounin Gatekeeper."

"We're coming out in the middle of the night. The club that Jack frequents should be there. You are to learn his wherabouts only. The next day use his riatsu to book it to Torchwood hub and try to get their attention. They will confront Gin when the swarm begins, that's when you step in." Doctor reminded her.

"Yes, I know." Sakura nodded. "And if I fail, there's always the hack and slash approach."

"You need to cool it on the wanton destruction thing, please?" The Doctor said winningly. "If something goes wrong, send your firelizard and I'll bring backup."

The city was dark, damp, it looked like it had just rained and the world smelled of crisp air and wet grass. //Its like coming out on an alien world. Inter Earth is nearly unrecognizable.// _"Because we are amorphous, we hold that in reverance."_ Sakura said quietly. _"We stand in awe before that which cannot be seen, and respect with every fiber that which we cannot explain._ Its an old Poem known as "Destiny's Call."

She and the Doctor parted company two blocks down from the club. "I'll scream if something goes wrong."

* * *

The club was flashing strobe lights, techno music was blaring too. Sakura inhaled deeply, it was surreal, like an alien world, instead of the Mortal realm. "HEY! Barkeep any sake?" She asked moving to the bar.

"You foreign or daft? This is a Welsh bar and yer asking for witches brew from the far east who knows where? Order somethin normal!"

Sakura looked back and forth along the bar for any idea what to order. Then she spotted it, his spiritual pressure was strange for a human, and his coat was just like hers only blue, plus it had military markings. He was drinking some kind of beer. "I'll have what he's having." She said loudly and cheerfully pointed to the man down the bar.

"JACK! You got yourself a copycat!" The bartender called out as he got out a glass. "Got your work cut out for you kid, if you're PAMPERED on sake, then the grog Jack drinks will have your pallet screaming. His taste in alcohol's very unique. Not many people.........."

"Don't scare her!" The man inched over, leaning in cutely with a smirk on his face. "I'm Jack Harkness, I haven't seen you around before."

"Definately, /not/ a kid. I'm passing through." Sakura told him with a faint smile. "Work related." She explained.

"WORK! You don't look like you're working now." Sakura grinned, but was wondering behind the smile. **Is he just flirting or does he sense my spiritual pressure? No, there's no way that a human can tell a shinigami apart, immortal or no, unless they've met one before. If anything he might guesss that I'm not human, but he'd have no way to verify unless he has some kind of scanner hidden on him. Best be carefull. **

"No, I managed to make my escape for an evening." Sakura said with a smile, and she started on her drink. "My bosses are real slave drivers........." she smirked, thinking of the commander general.

"You Japanese? You asked for sake but you speak english pretty well."

"Oh, half Japanese. My dad was Japanese and my mom American." Explained Sakura. "I moved to Japan when I grew old enough and developed quite a taste for sake. My friend Rangiku will use something as simple as a juicy piece of gossip or a new coworker as an excuse to get hammered." Sakura laughed. "So I had to develop a tolerance quick!"

"That's a good thing then!" Jack grinned lazily, offering Sakura a toast. "Shall we?" he quirked an eyebrow.

"To a night off!" Sakura agreed, laughing.

"I hear that!" Jack agreed.

The DJ at the club began to play a song Sakura hadn't heard in years, Lenny Kravitz "I'll be waiting." "The lovesong is sappy and I'd much rather hear something crazy loud, but would you like to dance?" Sakura asked with a huge grin.

"I'd be honored, such a LOVELY lady asks me to dance with her? How can I say no? The last blonde I knew...... aaaah well, she was a bit hot tempered, then went off with a handsome doctor instead of me."

Sakura laughed. "I've got lots of kids at home, and the most rotten luck with men." Sakura chuckled. "Or women."

"Really? You bat for both teams?" Jack's eyes twinkled in mischief.

"Should I not?" Sakura asked, laughing.

"I seeeee...... well, I don't mind batting for either team myself." Jack chuckled, taking the lead in the slow dance. Sakura sighed in contentment. "You okay? You look frazzled."

"I don't get out of the office much. Too much to do. I'm a division leader for my region, and my second in command is a hard worker, but he doesn't have the patience to deal with some of the more, delicate facets of my job. As for bad luck men, I need to hook you up with my friend Katry. Now HE'S a looker. A bit fiendish in appearance, but he's a big puppy on the inside." In fact, Katry was a 513 year hellhound yokai, very cute, with big soft black doggy ears and a big fluffy tail. "His FIRST boyfriend disappeared off the face of the planet, and his SECOND boyfriend dumped him. He needs bigtime loving."

"You'll have to introduce me sometime........." Jack laughed. "i'm morethan capable of big time loving."

Sakura grinned. "I hope so......." Then something beeped, her shinigami cellphone. It always went off when a hollow was nearby. Sakura HAD no choice, she had to go. "Oh no....... sorry......" Sakura said awkwardly. She flicked it open, "Its been lovely but I have to go to work. Sorry." She reached out and hugged Jack quickly before turning to leave.

Jack heard her say quietly as she left. "Not here...... there can't be one here yet! Damn I'm going to be out all night."

"Here's my tab, be back in a bit." Jack paid for the drinks and ran after Sakura. He looked left, right, then saw a flash of something above.

"Stupid hollow!" The woman was on the roof of the neighboring building. "Which way did it go.......?" She was checking the phone with a low growl. "I'd better go get it, what a drag." Then she was gone, leaping over the buildings like it was nothing. "Nova can you sense anything?"

"Well I'll be damned."

* * *

The hollow was slain, and Sakura spent most of the night looking for more before she curled up on a rooftop at dawn. She kept her mind on the location of the Captain known as Jack Harkness. She also hid her own spiritual pressure. She was going to wait until about 9 before she made her way to the Hub. Sakura held Nova close to her, the modsoul snuggling his stuffed toy body against her for comfort. "It should be soon Nova. Let me know if you sense Gin or an arrancar coming kay?"

The turtle plushie nodded, cuddling against the shinigami.

Sakura checked her watch, then the sky, then the phone's clock. 8:59..........

"Time to go Nova! Hang on tight!" The turtle plushie clung to Sakura's shoulder as the shinigami captain closed her eyes. Jack harkness....... she thought of the smiling face she'd met the night previous. Spirit ribbons wove their way around her. Then she reached and........ "GOT HIM! Let's book it!"

Sakura ran over rooftop and rooftop, making her way through the less populated parts of the city. She turned left, then right, and found herself in a crowded area. Closing her eyes, Sakura tugged the spirit ribbon again, moving at a more normal pace, she searched for the Captain's riatsu. There was a convention center, plain sight, "Darn, I need to find another way in. They're beneath my feet I can sense it." She reached out for any riatsu signature underground, pressing a hand to the soil. "Is it too far for you to teleport Nova."

"Yes, I can only teleport within 2 meters without my gigai. That is four meters to the shallowest point. Unless I' am in a gigai, I will not be able to teleport into the base."

"Can you search for entrances?"

"I can try." Nova said calmly, the turtle sat on sakura's shoulder and closed his eyes before pointing. "This way, its about four blocks over from the convention center. The area is almost deserted."

"Thank you." Sakura turned, and as soon as she was out of sight of onlookers. Step WOOSH! Shunpo carried her the rest of the way. "In here Nova?"

"Yes, the entrance is located in there." He pointed to a rundown shop.

"Thanks......" Sakura grinned, all but swaggering into the shop. "Hiiiiiii. I'm looking for management." She said charmingly, planting her hands on the desk.

"Sorry, we're closed." The man at the desk didn't look up from his coffee. He looked kinda chubby, kinda blocky. The coffee smelled delicious and that just made Sakura even more annoyed.

Sakura forced a strained smile. "Let me try another approach. Have you seen him?" Sakura pulled a scroll and unrolled it, a picture of Gin was printed on the front. "I need to find him, pronto. The doctor said that if I need to find anying or any one supernatural, odds are Torchwood is the place to start. And this guy Gin SERIOUSLY means you guys ill if I can't catch him so PLEASE. Let me speak...... to your boss." Sakura ground out.

The man instantly sprung to attention, if the mention of the doctor hadn't done it, the statement 'torchwood is the place to start' did. "Let me get Jack." The man got up and walked quickly towards the door. Sakura tapped her foot impatiently. Nova patted her on the head. "Its okay, they're coming." He looked up and pointed towards the door as it opened. The man came back with..... tada, Jack Harkness. "See Sakura, I told you." The plushie assured her.

"Its you." Jack blinked in surprise. "From last night."

"Sorry about skipping on you, I got a hollow alarm. When the call goes out, gotta go."

"I know what that's like." Jack said with a wary grin. "You never did give me your name."

Sakura offered her hand in greeting. "Sakura Ryuunami, captain shinigami 9th. I'm here chasing after one of our badguys, who seems to have strayed onto your turf."

"Really." Jack grinned. "The doctor showed you where to find us?"

"Yeah, he's doing a friend of mine a favor and won't be able to come for a couple of days. Its a seriously long story, and I could use some of that coffee." Her eyes glinted dangerously at the secretary. "Please before my head splits in half."

"She goes crazy without caffine." Nova added helpfully.

"Oh, this is Nova. He's a modsoul. My friend Urahara gave him to me. He's durn useful for a stuffed toy." Nova blushed and pulled into his shell with a 'shlup' "And he's shy."

"Hi there Nova. We aren't going to hurt you." Jack reached out to rub the turtle plushie's shell. "Does he always do that?"

Blink, blink blink. Tiny red eyes blinked from within the shell. Sakura rolled her eyes, laugng something. hing. "Nova has always hidden himself in his shell like that. As long as I can remember. And that's saying something."

"Ianto, tell the others we have a visitor." Jack told the chubby looking man.

"Sure......." He hurried ahead of them down the hall and Sakura followed at a more leisurely pace.

Sakura sighed, straightening her coat and coaxing Nova out of his shell. "I'm so glad you didn't turn me away. The gang that Aizen sent here, not somebody I want to take on alone. And this is a rather delicate situation. If it hadn't been for Donna, we never would have found out that Gin was even here."

"How is Donna doing?" Jack asked. "last time I checked she had the mind of a timelord."

"The Donna I spoke with was 500 years removed from this time. She was pretty much going insane from being cooped up. I'm a shinigami, but I'm also a member of an organization known as the Gatekeepers. As a gatekeeper I have access to information and resources other shinigami don't. They openly know of us, and most people will respond to gatekeeper the way they would if Torchwood set off an alarm. We guard ALL dimensions, and there are PLENTY of them out there. Alternate Earths, alternate worlds. The Soul Society, where shinigami live is one of these."

"Well we already know there are alternate realities."

"Yes, I've met Rose's future incarnation. She told me all about it. The problem is that I came backwards 500 years to respond to the warning Donna gave me. For her its been THAT long since she's seen earth. When...... when Earth returned after the Dahleks took it, as soon as the adrenaline wore off, Donna started to die. Timelord and human are NOT a compatible hybrid. The only way to save her life, was for the Doctor to supress all memories of her times traveling with him. She begged him not to leave her behind, that she would rather die knowing him than live without knowing him. But you know Doc, to him death is never an option.

"What the Doctor lacks however, is a working knowledge of chakra and spiritual pressure. These are principles EVERY shinigami needs to be able to guage reflexatively. He didn't take into account that Timelords have about ten times the chakra of a human. He also didn't take into account that his spiritual pressure does something very rare, its called Cascading. Cascading Spiritual pressure is rare, about, one person in several thousand. I've only seen one other person with Cascading Riatsu in 500 years." Jack blinked, nod quite understanding what she was talking about.

"Oh right, most outsiders don't know the principles of Chakra. Chakra is life force energy generated by the body, Spiritual Pressure is how fast they can pour out that life force energy without passing out. A person who's spiritual pressure cascades tends to stimulate the spiritual pressure of those close to him. His chakra was seeping into his companions and he didn't even notice it. Eventually you guys worked it out of your systems when you left him. The problem was, Donna's chakra was still exposed to the Doctors. In an amount none of you had to deal with. After the Doctor left, it dissolved the seal. Donna is one of us, Gatekeeping is a power you're born with. When we got to her, our best psychics did their best to try and repair the seal. But it didn't work. Eventually Donna's chakra dissolved the Doctor's seal. That would be......"

Sakura checked her comcrystal. "About a decade from now that it finally broke. It was her gatekeeping abilities that saved her. Gatekeepers are reincarnated all the time. Lots of Gatekeepers consider it a comfort, even if we're torn to shred and burned at the stake, we'll see each other again. But those past lives have to go somewhere. A lake in the afterlife. When a gatekeeper dies, our souls are taken to a place called Summerland. We fall into the lake and it dissolves our psyche, powers, memories, all of it, before we're reincarnated. But what we were, we can become again.

"Gatekeepers can access those past lives, and take on a genetic identity almost identical to what we had been. Its a random, spontaneous reaction. There's very little control over who and what the transformation turns us into. Technically, the Doctor Donna was a past incarnation. The seal broke, the memories came back. Donna nearly died, because her life was in danger, the ability triggered and turned her into a timelord. The change was lasting, permanent and devastating. She withdrew to Shield Station, was made a part of the shield council, and was cooped up for 500 years."

"Ouch." Jack shook his head. "Doctor wasn't very happy about that was he?"

"No." Sakura sighed. "He wasn't." She took a deep breath. "When I was a little girl, I heard stories about the Doctor and his Companions. It had been 500 years since I'd heard anything to do with them. The Dimension I grew up in everything is a story. Though sometimes there's a place that isn't. I didn't think I'd ever hear the sawing noise the Tardis makes when it enters a world for the first time. It took me ten seconds to realize what was going on. I turned the corner just in time to see the Doctor leave the Tardis. Well....... heh, I couldn't leave him there. And I couldn't leave the Tardis sitting out where our.... aherm, sticky fingered Tech Captain could snatch it. So I had my division place it in our HQ under seal and the Doctor became a guest of our Clan. I asked him a favor and we made a bargain."

"So Donna isn't a timelord now, but in 500 years she will be?" Jack eyed Sakura. "you said you met Rose's 'future incarnation?'"

Sakura laughed. "Gatekeepers dance through creation, Rose and Martha both have the power. Its something that lies latent until another keeper performs what's called a "tap" a simple spell that will stimulate the latent ability. Right now neither know they have it. And they won't until they die and a shinigami comes for their souls. The only real way to disrupt a gatekeeper's reincarnation process is for a shinigami to Konso them. Sends them to the Soul Society rather than Summerland Lake. The two of them stayed in the Rukongai for ages, but you know both of them. Neither was meant to sit still. I was holding a party for new graduates from the shinigami academy when Martha crashed it. A few seconds later Rose got so frustrated trying to get to doctor that she started punching out some of my officers. I thought my third seat Karin had a nasty swing." Sakura giggled.

"Yeah, Rose looked small, but she's probably the toughest out of all of us." Jack chuckled. "How /is/ she 500 years from now?"

"Was she a nasty shot with a rifle?"

"Yep."

"She's a nasty shot with a kidou now." Sakura laughed. "I'd have to pit her against Jenny though."

"Who?" Jack blinked in surprise. "Who's Jenny, the Doctor's new co....."

"Martha didn't tell you?" Sakura grinned. They were reaching the end of a corridor.

"Tell me what?"

"The doctor has a daughter. Jenny." Sakura laughed, watching as Jack's face slowly turned purple. "Yes, and she's just as good with a gun as her father hates them." Jack started to laugh. The door, a big gear opened. "GWEN! We have visitors!" Jack called.

"Right here." Gwen and another woman came out of a side room with a scanner and a bin. "Your weapons please?"

Sakura blinked in surprise. "Pardon?"

"You're wearing two swords, and our scanner detects a number of hidden throwing knives."

"You can keep the Kunai, the suriken and my ignition cloth gloves, but touch my Gatekey or my Zanpakuto and I will CHOP OFF your hand." Sakura snarled, tossing the bag of Kunai into the bin.

"That is not up for debate, we can't let an unfamiliar person wander around the Hub with weapons on their person." Gwen said sternly.

"You are NOT taking Saeyamaru. I'll cut off your ARMS if you TRY!" Sakura hissed, bristling. She turned to the other woman, saying in Japanese. _"The sword is the soul of the Samurai. My Saeyamru is part of my soul. Please help me....."_ Sakura pleaded.

"What did she just say?" Jack asked, turning to the other woman.

She answered back in Japanese. _"I apologize, it is Torchwood policy to remove weapons."_ A pause. _"To be polite, I am Toshiko, and you?"_

_"Sakura Ryuunami, Shinigami Captain. My zanpakuto, Saeyamaru is a part of my soul. Confiscating it is like cutting off a limb. You are Japanese, you sympathize. Please."_

"What did she just say?" Gwen insisted this time.

_"Sh...... shinigami ka?_ Toshiko's face turned white. "_You are truely the reaper?"_

_"One of many, yes. My sword is the manifestation of my Soul. A shinigami should never be seperated from their zanpakuto. Our power fades and we become as helpless as a mortal before a hollow."_

"I am sorry...... I will try." Toshiko sighed. "She's a shinigami, she says her sword is part of her soul. She cannot be seperated from it. It is like taking the scythe from the Grim Reaper." Sakura drooped. "Shinigami is the God of Death. If she cannot leave her sword behind, then I believe she cannot."

"Grim Reaper. Didn't know death looked so good." Jack said, eyeing Sakura with a loopy smile.

Toshiko still regarded Sakura with fear. She recited what Sakura knew was a Sutra praying to Budda for protection and Enma for mercy. "Please! I mean you no ill. God of death doesn't automatically mean I'm out for a kill!" Sakura said desperately. "We are the GUARDIANS of the living, not the takers of life!"

"What was she saying?" Gwen asked.

"A sutra begging Buddha for protection and mercy from Enma." Sakura sighed in defeat. "My zanpakuto is part of my soul. I cannot relinquish it. And taking my gatekey is tantamount to stealing the Doctor's Tardis." Sakura sighed. "My species appears in Japanese mythology, and are not portrayed in a very flattering light."

"I apologize." Toshiko shook her head. "Some say that it is an ill omen even to speak of the reaper."

"And I can tell you how THAT came about." Sakura said as she slipped off her jacket for Gwen to further confirm her zanpakuto and gatekey were the only "weapons" on her. "We shinigami have only one purpose, slay hollows. Hollows eat people. Ergo if a shinigami is walking among the living a hollow is nearby and one should be afraid." Sakura replied. "Now before anybody else starts quaking in fear that a Grim Reaper has just walked into your control room, I could seriously use some coffee."

Nova perked up from Sakura's shoulder. "She is friendly. I promise."

"ACK!" Gwen dropped the tray. "Did that stuffed animal just talk?"

"Yeah, this is Nova. He's a modsoul. I need him to return to shinigami form. So please do not take him too." Sakura joked. "Now can I get back to the reason why I came /500/ years back in time to bother you folks?"

"We just need Owen." The secretary had been watching this whole time. "Then we'll have everybody. You went through a lot of trouble."

"And if your team doesn't know Hollow 101 you're going to get eaten. My boy's planning to let off a swarm of them. A human with the right equipment can kill a single hollow if they're lucky. But they eat SOULS. Not even a Timelord can regenerate if he or she is eaten, because a soul is what's needed for the process to work." Sakura grinned. "The same with you, Jack Harkness. I sense your chain of fate is unusually strong. But a hollow can snap that like its paper."

"I'll keep that in mind." Jack said with a smirk.

Sakura laughed. "You better, I don't want to have to explain to Doctor why I'm dragging your carcass off the battlefield and your carcass isn't laughing at me."

Jack burst out laughing, but was interrupted when Sakura's comcrystal chirped. "What's that?"

"I didn't think I'd be found this soon. I came back in time, so I'm getting an inquiry from the local gatekeeper network." She sighed, "Parden moi." She activated the crystal.

"Unidentified keeper, please identify yourself immediately." A hologram of a quiet woman with long green hair dressed in white robes emerged from the crystal cluster.

"CC! I didn't think I'd see your melencholy mug this soon!" Sakura forced a smile.

"Do I know you?"

"CC, its your little scruffhead Gwen. I just changed my name, became blonde again, and grew about 500 years. Please, I'm on a confidential mission here in Cardiff. I cannot be reported to have been found here."

"I am sorry, you'll have to speak to Washu. I must report this to her." CC replied.

"And WASHU will tell you to BUTTON it!" Sakura snapped. "You and Lelouche are CROWD CONTROL. Not Snowflake command. Donna is the only reason why the two of you are here."

Silence. "Nobody but us knows that she is here. I am sorry but I must report this." CC said calmly.

"ASSHOLE. Put WASHU on the line right now."

"Universe's greatest genius, Washu speaking." The hologram changed to a short woman with pink hair.

"WASHU! Thank goodness. Its your little blossom. Please, I've come backwards 500 years and spent a whole night hunting hollows and I SERIOUSLY need somebody who can keep their mouth shut."

"500 years huh? How'd you get back that far, little blossom. Who let you travel, or did you fall again?"

"Traveled, and it was the Doctor."

"You MET the Doctor?" Washu squealed. "oh my goodness me. He's a legend among us galactic geek types. You need to get me an autograph. I want to meet him as much as I like Tenchi. I hear he's a genius. He's even smarter than me." Given washu's conciet over her IQ, the fact that she called doctor even smarter than she was something.

Sakura snapped her fingers. "Washu, Washu earth to Washu. I'm here on CONFIDENTIAL Shield Council business. Let the right people know ONLY. The whole strand can't know I'm here."

"Can you get me his autograph?" Washu demanded, hearts overing above her head.

"WASHU!" Sakura protested, mortified. "You know the rule about fangirlism!!! Its RUDE!"

"Okay, fine. But can I experiment on Jack......"

"DOWN GIRL." Sakura scolded. "Stick to Tenchi, fewer kinks."

"I can do kink." Washu purred. "Harkness is the world's third biggest hunk. Tenchi and Doctor are one and two."

"Washuuuuu........." Sakura whined, clearly embarassed.

"Weren't you the one who said that if you didn't have a dragon welded into your soul you'd be the biggest whore in the strand?"

"I ate those words the first century after I died." Sakura replied with a wry grin. "The Kuchiki Elders nearly stoned me after I got caught with Byakuya."

"Go girl!" Washu cheered. "You're at Torchwood right? Think Harkness will tolerate TWO shinigami in his hub?"

"Who do you have in mind?"

"The Goddess of Flash." Washu grinned toothily.

"Great, you REALLY want to parade temptation in front of the pious don't you." Sakura laughed. "That's okay, Jack puts his hands where they don't, Yoruichi will claw his eyes out." She giggled.

"Ohkay I want to meet a woman who can do that to Jack." Gwen commented, listening in. "She sounds like quite a character."

"Oh dear, he's in the room isn't he"

"Parade temptation all you like..... washu?" Sakura asked.

"Yeah?"

"You're a genius."

"And I let everyone know it."

"Can I kiss you?"

"That I can pass on darlin." Washu said with a wink. "People kiss you, you end up with a case of the Benden Flu. Oh, and I'll send your friend Zero along too. He's driving Clyde up a rope. Maria and Luke had to pull Clyde off of our dearest Lulu. And Clyde had to buy Sarah Jane a new coffee table. A change of scenery might be good."

"Lelouche tends to do that to people." Sakura rolled her eyes. "Is that why CC was so cranky?" She started laughing. "Benden Flu, is that what you call it nowadays?"

"Yeah, the baby flu." Washu stuck her tongue out. "The one that makes your stomach swell with a crying little baby and sane men and women go 'aaaw... so kawaii.' But you don't have Seiryuu anymore. I suspect the flow of little Sakura's stopped soon after that."

"Not in front of Torchwood." Sakura hissed. "And yeah, that's only fucking around with men now that does that. I think the Kuchiki elders nearly stoned me into a second death the first time they caught me and Byakuya. But maybe it was the locker room shower that did it. Or the supply closet. Truely though? I'd much rather curl up with Yoruichi or Nanao for an evening. Much softer company."

"I don't doubt it." Washu giggled. "Aaaah, Sakura I'm SOOOOOOO curious. Have the centuries been kind to you, tell me honestly. I'm a goddess, I can't die. The otherside is quite a mystery to me. You're a shinigami..... you happy in the land of the dead?" Sakura didn't notice Owen's head whipping around to regard her intently.

"No..... i'm not. There isn't a day I haven't wanted to scream." Sakura sighed. "I never wanted the coat either. I mean, what's up with just shoving me into a command position? I'm all for being occupied, but I never liked being the head honcho. And moving a gigai isn't like having a proper body at all." Sakura pouted, flopping her arms to the side. "its like moving sticks, and the eyesight is so weak."

"I know." Washu said quietly. "I didn't get to know you too well kiddo, but i could tell you weren't happy with the destiny of a shinigami. You would have fought to survive as a human as long as you could." She paused, regarding Sakura quietly. "There is the untracable gigai." She suggested. "you could be human again, be the little girl Gwennie we know so well all over again." She said knowingly. "Urahara is a master at making them, the only man who can change a shinigami into an ordinary mortal. Quite a temptation......"

"But I can't do it." Sakura said quietly. "I'm needed." She sighed. "I take an untracable and its over. No more adventures, no more hollows. I want to give up the coat, I want to run away and go completely AWOL. and I can't. I love this. I love the rush of reishi over my body and rapture with Saeyamaru. The ability to sneak unseen through the streets in spirit form and the strength afforded by my bankai. Love and loyalty and family chain me to the Soul Society. I could never turn around and leave it behind for an ordinary humdrum human existance."

"I thought that was what you'd say." Washu chuckled. "So you continue to twist the knife." Washu scratched her head with a pitying look in her eyes. "What made you decide to come back?"

"I got pissed off." Sakura said quietly. "I didn't want to hide in an office anymore. I got tired of boring captain's meetings. I got tired of only leaving for patrols and running drills. A planet that turns, not an eternal forest running every which way. Air that pulses with the life of a city or a beach or a mountain instead of the dense pull of reishi through my lungs."

"Hmmm....... i see. It sounds like you need the vacation." Washu chuckled. "Alright, Yoruichi and Lelouche will be here by evening. CC is staying though. We're going to need her to look after another friend of Doctor's. Jack, nice to meet you at last. Take care of Sakura, she's a jewel, known throughout the strand for her radience."

Sakura frowned, "That brilliance was extinguished when I lost Major........" Was the last thing she said to Washu.

"What....... what did she mean....... afterlife?" Owen stammered.

"Shinigami are the spirits of humans who died. We decided that we couldn't rest in peace if there was danger in the world for the living. In order to interact with mortals, we need gigai, faux bodies." She said wanely. "Lots of shinigami complain about them. They feel heavy and stiff to us." She cocked her head at Owen, brow furrowing for a moment. "Oooooh...... oh dear......" She moved forwards, crooning compassionately as she laid a hand gently on Owen's chest. "Oooooh honey........ somebody should have come for you a long time ago......" Sakura said quietly. It was, probably, the only compassion on the matter that Owen had actually accepted, from anyone.

"What......... the gigai...... what's it like?" The look on Owen's face was one of longing.

"It breathes, it beats, it eats...... but its like moving through mollassas. Even if you did survive transferring into one, you'd have to learn to walk and talk and function all over again. Literally. You'd be as bedbound as a baby for weeks after, you'd need a ton of PT just to walk." She sighed, "If you even want to consider the prospect, speak to Urahara when you meet him. He didn't invent gigai, but he did the most with them that any of our scientists ever have." She sighed. "And even if you decided to, you would have to raise your spiritual pressure before you even tried. You'd have to become a shinigami, or worse, a vaizard. And trust me, a zanpakuto clamoring in your mind is one thing, a screaming shrieking hollow locked inside your soul is a burden some shinigami would rather DIE than shoulder. My father, he died before I did and became a vaizard, he can tell you howunpleasant that is, he leads the 5th Division. He has to live with that burden every day of his life. My lieutenant Ichigo as well. If you tried as you are now, you wouldn't be able to get in, and you'd transform into a hollow. Probably within weeks or even days of exiting your current form. Please do not think that a gigai is a simple matter of climbing in. Its NOT."

"But this Urahara guy, what's he like?"

"He's a weird guy. You know he and the Doctor were able to talk tech on an equal level? That is something I've NEVER seen. Even when he was exiled and an order to kill on sight put on his shoulders, Urahara's name was still whispered in awe and fear in the Soul Society. He picked a really charming gigai too..... a bit of a five o clock shadow. He's got this floppy blonde hair, and he's got these crystal eyes that are joyful as a child on a summer day with all the freedom of the world before him and the age of a veteran of centuries of wisdom and kindness to his existance. He wears this floppy green hat, and a big green and black coat and green shirt. He wears geta sandals, and believe it or not he can fight in them too. He keeps a fan on him, a paper fan, you know the kind. You can always tell he's mocking you when he hides his face behind it. He carries a cane that he hides his zanpakuto in, and he's the kind of personality you'd have to SEE to believe. He is to the shinigami what the Doctor is to you, and he comes and goes as he pleases." She said with a warm smile. "And if you've seen him at work, you'd know that he has an absolutely PERVERTED sense of humor."

"Do you really think he'd........."

"OWEN YOU CANT BE SERIOUS!" Toshiko shrilled. "Shinigami LITERALLY means "God of Death" they're just that, psychopomps. They're grim reapers with swords instead of scythes. You're being completely dense. And if you havent noticed she's TRYING to talk you out of it!"

"I'm completely and totally jealous." Owen stuck his nose in the air.

Sakura hestitated. "However..... the damage done to your body in battle. That I can repair. I'm no kidou specialist, but if you break your arm or twist your fingers its going to stay that way."

"Not telling me anything I don't already know." Owen sighed. "Though..... thanks...... if I get in trouble and need it, thanks....." He sounded awkward and extremely disappointed.

Sakura chuckled. "You know, that look, its the look Byakuya gets sometimes....."

"you two seem to be hitting it off." Jack sighed. "Though...... its weird."

"Not at all...... my spiritual form is probably visible to all of you. Supernatural phenomena seems to have altered your spiritual pressures. Hollows will likely appear as shimmers though. You're not quite at the point yet. Being dead, Owen will be able to see hollows quite plainly. However, he is a walking, corporeal Whole, as we shinigami call ordinary ghosts. He's hollow food, and is much weaker against them than all of you. Hollows for the most part eat human ghosts and NEVER turn down a living human. Its the soul that they eat, and the souls of those eaten also become hollows. Because of this, a Timelord cannot regenerate if eaten. Jack, I hear you can't die?" At a grin and a nod. "Trust me, a hollow will kill you for REAL. They eat souls, and a soul is what's needed for you to constantly be returning to life like you do. If it turns out you can't see one, infrared is a good way to tell. Infrared picks up shinigami AND hollows. Vaizard and Arrancar too. If you don't have infrared, you can sometimes catch a shimmery spot in the air where a hollow is standing, and when they appear the air seems to become denser, the temperature turns chill. All humans are inately terrified of hollows, even if you can't see one, your first instinct if one appears is going to be to run for your life." Sakura warned them.

"Hollows have only ONE weakness." She went on, "the mask on their face. Hollows are fallen human souls, transformed into monsters by their own grief, their own refusal to accept their death not as a finality, but as a step in a cycle. They didn't pass to the other side in time and their body transformed into a monster. A hollow victim....." Sakura reached for a computer with a visual program and began drawing illustrations. "Very often a hollow victim's body is left with a hole in its sternum, a simple empty black opening. No gore and guts. Just emptiness. Hollow claws on a living person or a cadaver leave pale, ghost like bruises. Some hollows will attack the people they cared for. My friend Orihime's brother became a hollow after he died, and was able to resist the hollow hunger long enough to protect her from several accidents. My lieutenant Ichigo removed his mask, allowing him to gain temporary control over himself, but before he would have lost it again Sora Inoue rammed his head on Ichigo's sword and exorcised himself. A Hollow newly transformed is literally out of their mind with hunger and pain.

"The hollows have a pocket dimension they inhabit, Hueco Mundo. Hueco Mundo is, on the surface, an endless Desert. No sun, only moonlight and sandstorms. Its an empty place, with the occasional fortress or ruin. But there are caves that lead to an underground forest. Its called the Menos forest. Its as teeming with life as the surface was empty. But the Menos forest is FILLED with Menos grande and adjuchas. Entering it by mistake is almost certainly a death sentance. And if we are hurt bad enough, TRUST ME, shinigami /are/ capable of dying. It has a bit of plantlife, but the trees are made of pure crystal. Their furthest tops stick up through the sand of the surface as brittle twigs and branches.

"Hollows evolve. But that process is more often than not not in their favor. The mark to look for in an evolving hollow is a stronger hollow that seems more interested in eating other hollows than humans. After awhile an ordinary hollow may become a huge hollow if it isn't exorcised fast enough. A hollow takes one swipe. A Huge hollow takes two. Hollows most often evolve during a swarm. That's what makes them so dangerous. A Menos grande, the first stage of evolution, is MINDLESS. They walk, they destroy, and they eat other hollows. They're the product of at least a hundred, most often more, hollows merging into one body. They have no....... sense of self. No individuality. However, /if/ a hollow's consciousness survives evolving, they attack and eat other Menos Grande. And they keep doing it. Eventually their form and body compress into an Adjuchas. Adjuchas are also known as "hollow shepards" most hollows of a level below them will obey them the way a fox obeys wolves. Adjuchas have to keep eating other hollows, if they don't, they become a menos grande again. If that happens there is NO way for them to recover their individuality. Adjuchas are typically between a motorcycle and a large bus in size. They /look/ like normal hollows a lot of the time, though my friend Grimmjow...... oooooh he was unique. He was literally a jungle cat.

"If they get STRONG enough as adjuchas, a hollow evolves further into an arrancar. Arrancar look VERY human. Only a fraction of their mask remains behind. The hole isn't strictly on their sternum as it is with other hollows, Grimmjow's is closer to his abdomen, and Ulquiorra's is about at his throat. And I know from experience, their holes are very sensitive parts of their body. In my time period Grimmjow and Ulquiorra are ringleader of an empire of Arrancar. Typically they haven't caused us much trouble since Aizen's death. Grimmjow and Ulquiorra use a special device known as the Hogyoku in order to change as many adjuchas as they can into arrancar. And most Adjuchas are more than happy to take a humanoid form, as arrancar aren't constantly hungry the way a hollow is. The more humanoid the arrancar the stronger they are. The Arrancar divide their ranks into Numeros, Fraccion, Espada, and Primeron Espada. In case you can't tell, all those names are Spanish. For Arrancar its their first language, though they speak several. Numeros are your run of the mill Espada, assigned numbers in order of their being changed from Adjuchas to Arrancar. Espada are the BIIIIG guns. They're the top ten most powerful Arrancar in Hueco Mundo. Fraccion are underlings, but in many ways they are as strong as the Espada that they serve. Arrancar BEHAVE like a pack of wolves more often than not. Mmm....... and Grimmjow is quite........ well Jack trust me he's GOOD."

Jack laughed. "I'll take your word for it."

"But its the arrancar of THIS time and THIS when that you have to worry about. Grimmjow and Ulquiorra are both Gatekeeper spies, but as such they can't break their cover. They will TRY their best not to kill you once it becomes clear to him that I'm working with you. But like all covers you have to act as if he is the enemy and BEHAVE like he's the enemy. Trust me that he'll survive almost anything you're capable of throwing at him. Their boss is a guy named Sousuke Aizen. He, his manslut Gin Ichimaru, and the late Kaname tousen stole a weapon known as the Hogyoku. The name means, "Breakdown sphere" in the right hands, it can transform hollows into arrancar, releasing them from the hollow hunger into a far more tolerable existance. But it can also create the "King's Key" which opens the door into the pocket dimension that the Gods and Goddesses live in. To us Gatekeepers, he is a BIG threat. He was once one of us, he is NOT one of us anymore. And after the siege of las Estrellas his abilities as a gatekeeper were PERMANENTLY bound. Soooooo...... for him to transfer from place to place he needs a gargantua just like his underlings. And Cardiff is a GREAT place for him to open a gargantua. The rift makes the fabric of space weaker, as I'm sure you've noticed. Because of that shinigami can open a senkaimon gate to this realm without any form of advanced targeting system. However, step beyond the edge of the rift's reach, and one can no longer open a senkaimon gate. The same rules apply for a gargantua.

"That makes Cardiff VERY useful as a staging ground for assaults elsewhere. Tech that comes through the Rift is Gravy on the biscuit. NORMALLY if you don't have a gatekey you need to use tunnels to get from place to place. But that requires MONTHS of travel. Its almost not worth it for a mortal, and annoying to immortal species such as yokai or chevallier or homonculi. If Aizen can get enough hollows into Cardiff, he'll likely do two things he'll leave an Espada and a couple of adjuchas behind to gather technology and find more hollows.

"If that happens any of the Doctor's companions and the Timelord himself become targets, and more than likely Gin will spread out his forces and try to plunder ANY source of Alien technology. Torchwood would likely be his first target. Not just Torchwood 3 but the other hubs as well. You guys are most in a position to stop him if you can. More than likely he'll continue north to Easling and tear the Doctor's friend Sarah Jane to pieces, then move on to Manhatten and Martha's group at UNIT. If the Doctor shows up ungarded, they will SLAUGHTER him. Its the bad guys like Dahleks that Gin has to fear the most, believe it or not."

"That is just sad." Gwen sighed. "The badguys are stronger against your friend than we are. That's just...... wrong."

"Oh it gets worse. The hollows are going to try and ENTER this realm through Cardiff and then EXIT it somewhere else. THEY will be trying to leave the area and do as much damage as they can. You have to take down as MANY of them as you can stop." Sakura explained.

"You make it sound simple." Jack chuckled. "Alright...... anything else about this we should know?"

Sakura laughed. "No, but if something comes up I'll let you know." She sighed. "Yoruichi will likely only come when her replacements are in place."

The rest of the team disbursed to prepare for battle. "So.......... this Grimmjow guy, how GOOD is he?"

Sakura laughed. "A bit rough, a bit crass, but I'd trust him with my life and he's hung like a god." Sakura grinned. This was going to be an interesting two days.

* * *

"Dialga?" Jenny asked, she was enjoying tea with Sakura Haruno. They'd been joined by two men named Naruto and Sasuke. The pink haired woman smiled warmly. "Who's that?" The young Timelord asked.

"There are two pokemon that have the ability to travel in time. Dialga is one, and Celebi is the other. It looks like Doctor left the red chain behind, so he's probably not going to need Dialga wherever he's headed."

"Good, i need him. How do I use this...... red chain?" Jenny picked it up, rolling the sanguine crystaline links through her fingers and forwning. "It looks likean ordinary lengthof red chain links."

Sakura sighed, the kunoichi couldn't help thinking that they were going to get in trouble. "Cut your thumb, or your hand. Squeeze the chain so that the blood is firmly on it. You should be able to leave a fingerprint, just one. Then swing the chain so that it wraps around your wrist. Last, slam the chain into the nearest flat surface. A wall, a floor. Anything that you can flatten your hand against." Naruto told Jenny.

Suddenly a firelizard all but SCREECHED into existance, very agitated. The little blue squealed and flew around the room, so frightened that he dropped the letter he was carrying onto Jenny's head and disappeared. Jenny retrieved the letter, turning it over in her hand. "Its addressed to me........."

Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke looked between each other while Jenny opened it. The timelord frowned. "its lyrics........" She hmmmed, repeating them........

_"She was out with her friends almost every night,  
she was young she had fun till the morninglight._

_Never took always gave, that was new for us, cause love will never die ..._

_Little June is living for tomorrow, taken away on a beautyful day._

_Little June is swallowing her sorrow, she closed her eyes as she left for the skies._

_Little June is living for tomorrow, every day she justs wanted to stay._

_Little June is swallowing her sorrow, now that she's gone we all have to move on."_

That was the backside of the paper, and a sketch in the lower left of the paper showed a tiny fairy like creature with huge eyes reaching for something. The lower right had a cluster of delicate flowers on it. The upper right showed a flute sending notes onto the wind across the top of the parchment. The other side of the sheet there was a date, time, the name Cardiff Wales and the initials, N.S.S.7. There was an underscore beneath the words TIME IT in capitols. Another flower insignia with the kanji 5 beneath it was drawn on the paper as well, with serpents coiling around it ready to strike. Each serpent had a mask and one of them had the number 6 on it.

"The other side........ what the heck is......."

The three shinobi looked at each other and sighed. "Jenny, we need your help. There's a battle a long time ago that you need to get to, and you need to bring our past selves to it. You're going to need Dialga."

"Tell me what's happened?" Jenny said seriously.

"Well we can't tell you who sent the message, but we can tell you where to go." Sasuke told her. "Listen carefully......."

* * *

At exactly midnight that night, Dialga appeared in the forest near Konohagakure, heading straight for the Hokage's office. Dialga's pacing was fast, smooth, his paws only lightly pattering the rooftops. The villagers, used to shinobi using their rooftops as a shortcut, slept on, oblivious. However, Tsunade seemed to have an ear for trouble, the sannin turned Hokage was waiting with Shizune at the window to her office. "What happened? You're a gaterkeeper right? That's a gatekeeper summons, only used by the servents of gods themselves."

"I'm new to the gatekeepers yes, and its urgent, I need Sakura and Naruto. And I need some way to get Orochimaru to send Sasuke with me."

"Sasuke is on the run, his new splinter group SNAKE. But here's his last location. Shizune, get Naruto and Sakura out of bed." Tsunade told her assistant. "I'm Tsunade, and you?"

"Jenny, a timelord. I came a long way and I really need help. Naruto said that I needed to go to you or I'd be shot at. He said also that I need to have Neji look at my........ chakra network?" Jenny frowned. "Is that the term?"

"Yes." Tsunade said calmly. "Its the system that spiritual energy flows through. I can tell off the bat that you have a lot of it. You said you're a 'Timelord?'"

"Yeah, and you can't tell ANYBODY about me. My existance has to be highly classified. Need to know ONLY."

"Tsunade-basama!" Naruto and Sakura bounded into the room. Naruto yawned sleepily. "What happened that I get a mission in the middle of the night?"

"This is Jenny, she asked for you and Sakura specifically."

"Actually both of you did." Jenny said with a grin. The redchain had turned hot, glowing with an inner ruby light. "I just need to get chakra 101 from your friend Neji. But there's a....... a battle that I'm to bring you two to. We have to fetch Sasuke as well."

"Sasuke gets to come along as well?" Naruto asked hopefully.

Dialga rumbled, rubbing his muzzle against Jenny's cheek. "Your adult selves told me to come. And if you want proof that Naruto asked me," Jenny pulled out a peace of parchment. "This was the seal mark on your stomach. He drew it for me to show you. He said you don't show anybody that seal sign unless its for medical treatment."

"yeah, I don't. Well......... Neji knows its there, since we......... ah, long story."

"I came Tsunade, is there a reason you needed me in the middle of the night?" Neji walked in the door. Jenny took in the long black hair, pale robes, eyes the color of snow with the faintest tinge of lavender in them.

"Everyone, these are Jenny and Dialga. Jenny is a species called a Timelord. Obviously they're gatekeepers. Naruto, Sakura, your future selves asked that she come get you. There's a battle that they asked you to come to."

"A hollow swarm in my home dimension, Aizen is planning on letting it off." Jenny said calmly. "We're to fetch Sasuke as well. But Naruto, grown up Naruto said that Neji is supposed to 'look' at my chakra network and tell me what it looks like, then his role is done. But Naruto and Sakura, we're leaving tonight."

Neji nodded, "find a chair and sit still." Shizune provided a chair and Jenny sat, holding as still as she could. "BYAKUGAN!"

Neji rocked back. "Your chakra is very bright, this is odd. You have two chakra centers, and your entire aura is lit with golden light. Your flow is especially strong, very healthy. Jenny, I need you to focus on moving that energy into your hand, try to make a ball appear in your hand."

Jenny nodded. She couldn't do a ball, not at first....... but slowly a flame of golden chakra took shape in her hand. "If it makes any difference, Timelords have two hearts."

"that explains it then. Chakra is produced by the heart. Two hearts means twice as much chakra as a human of equal strength and health. I think your system is somehow purifying and amplifying it. And I read at least 3 times as many tenketsu, chakra points, as a humans." Neji said quietly. "I do not understand why....."

"Thanks, you've been very helpful." Jenny stood and Neji deactivated his gift. "Naruto, Sakura. We're going to need to find Sasuke. Dialga can show us the way." She motioned for Naruto and Sakura to mount Dialga behind her. "Hang on tightly."

* * *

Doctor was in search of his own backup, somebody that he knew and somebody he was hoping could help him. The Tardis sawed into existance in UNIT's former HQ. Martha was just giving orders to a group of soldiers, all of them young or recent recruits. "The computer equipment in laboratories 4 and 8 are still usable. I want everything bagged and tagged." The noise startled all in the room. "Its alright, all of you hurry up and do the tasks I gave you." Martha turned and was waiting as the new recruits watched the Tardis's appearance, breaking into awed whispers. "What is it Doctor?"

"I need you. Just for a couple of days. I know I said I was't coming for about a year, but things changed and we're needed in Cardiff."

"What's wrong with Jack?" Martha asked. "What happened?"

"Not happened yet, he's going to need backup. Remember Sakura? I introduced you to her via videophone."

"Yeah, is she with you too?"

"She's there helping Jack prepare. But I know right off that they're going to need a medic. I just need to get one more person from Sakura's world and then we head for Cardiff. I hate to have Sakura out there alone, and Torchwood doesn't have the firepower to be very effective. I'm worried that Jack is going to get creamed."

"I'll come, they know me, they trust me. And Owen........ one smack and his body can't be repaired. I mean......" Martha chewed on her lip. "I'll come." She whistled. "Danan, please tell Headquarters that I've gone with the doctor and that it can't wait. you're in charge while I'm gone!"

The recruit nodded his head. "Is it bad?"

"Yeah." Martha turned to Doctor. "lead the way. Danan is a responsible soldier. He'll take care of things while I'm gone." She frowned as the Doctor started the TARDIS and began punching out coordinates. "Where are we going?"

"To get help from a like mind who knows more about the subject. Hold on. We're going to Karakura town. We're going to ask Urahara for help."

Urahara eyed the two visitors in his front room. "So you need backup. Your friend Owen needs special care if injured?" Urahara frowned. "Interesting. This note is, indeed, in my own handwriting. And my reishi fingerprint is encorporated into the paper. It must be my handwriting. I have not yet had the honor of meeting you Doctor, though I have heard a lot about you from the other gatekeepers. Well. Technically I'm not one. But I get a lot of the perks one of their scientists would get, so I must be doing something right."

"Do you know anybody who can help us? I mean, Sakura's a shinigami."

"Hmm...... Yoruichi is probably already there." Urahara frowned. "Somebody who can keep a secret. She has my nova already, he can't go." He sighed. "I already recieved a note in my own handwriting explaining what needed to be done. I placed a reishi fingerprint on it so that I could identify it as mine." Then he grinned. "Orihime, come out of hiding please. Our friend doesn't bite."

Orihime slipped, falling on her face out of the door. "S....... sorry Urahara-kun. I didn't mean to evesdrop." She blushed, struggling to her feet and blushing furiously. "I mean I......."

"How much of that did you hear?" Urahara was smiling.

"Aaaaah, that the Doctor was from a people who travel through time, and that he and his friend Martha came for help. There are gonna be hollows all the way over in Europe and Gwennie came all the way back in time to ask for help!" Orihime said brightly. "I could help! Healing is the only real thing I'm good at." Orihime said quietly. "I'm not big and strong like Kurosaki-kun or smart like Kuchiki-chan." Orihime seated herself next to Urahara.

"Doctor, Orihime Inoue, Orihime Inoue, Doctor. Perhaps since you seem to prefer female companions, you wouldn't mind some female backup coming with you? And Gwen/Sakura will be glad to see her. And if your friend Owen really is a walking corpse, Orihime may be the only one able to repair the damage to his body. She probably won't be able to return him to life, but she will be able to mend any tears or bruises or broken bones." he frowned. "although, I may be underestimating her abilities, but Orihime should probably ask her friends that."

Martha looked relieved. Suddenly six points of light sparkled into view above Orihime's head. They looked...... like small brightly colored birds. "Tsubaki, did you hear all that?" Orihime asked curiously. "Shun'o you too?"

"Sure did! Orihime just remember before you step into battle, the strength of your power lies with your emotions. If you FEEL that you must protect your teammates, you will. People claim that the will to kill is the key to strength, you prove that wrong!" A little fairlylike creature hovered in front of Orihime's nose. "Remember that you're on your own out there. Ichigo, Rukia, Renji, Uryu, Sado. They won't be able to help you."

"I know Tsubaki, I'll take care." Orihime smiled quietly. All six disappeared. "My shun shun rikka are ready to go." She said..... and the Doctor liked the look on Orihime's face. Sad, but concerned, eager to help, and smarter than her years.

"Orihime's healing power comes from being able to 'deny events.' it denies that a shot has been aimed at her, denies the matter that holds someone together, causing severe wounds, but most importantly she is so powerful that by denying a fatal wound she can bring someone back from the brink of death, or in the case of your friend Owen, repair damage to a corpse." Urahara smiled. "In fact, if fully unleashed she could probably restore his body to life as long as his soul is still in it. Though admittedly she hasn't had to use it in that fashion. And if she has to heal the other four members of Torchwood plus the two of you in a fight, it will take a huge amount of spiritual pressure to accomplish. She might not have the strength to return your friend to the living in her first try." Urahara's eyes twinkled. "Of course, that same denial of events makes it almost impossible to erase, supress, or otherwise tamper with, her memories. Even if reality were to drastically change tomorrow, she would remember it as it should be."

"Fortunately, I'm so clumsy and ditsy, nobody would believe me anyway. Not even Kurosaki-kun or Tatsuki-chan." Orihime said with a faint smile. "I'm the perfect choice to go."

"I like her Doctor, what do you think?" Martha asked. There was a glimmer in her eye, one that the Doctor shared.

The Timelord smiled warmly. "Its a pleasure to have you with us Orihime." Doctor smiled reassuringly. "you're more than perfect for the job. I'm sure Sakura will be glad to see you."

"THANK YOU!" Orihime said in relief. "And Gwennie is gonna need me." She said bravely. "She's okay with healing kidou but she's completely hopeless for major wounds."

"gwen? I thought her name was Sakura?" Martha asked.

"In our timeperiod she's Gwen Ryuunami, Lieutenant for Division 13. She's really nice, but she's always sad. She worries about ZP and Major alot." Orihime said quietly. "She once said, that she knows exactly when and how she's going to die. It makes her strong, it gives her faith that she'll come through. But she's so scared of losing people she cares about." Orihime said quietly. "She doesn't care about her own fate, she doesn't want people to be sad. And her biggest fear is being left behind, of losing the people she cares about and not being able to protect them." Orihime looked out at the sky as they left the Shoten. "I truely believe, if she had to, she would give her soul to protect the people she loves the most, and without her loved ones, she would lose all will to live."

The Doctor pondered that as they headed for the Tardis. He had an insight into Sakura now. A woman like that was someone to be feared, but someone with serious flaws in her personality. If he was to keep his promise to Sakura, to restore her memories of being human, the losses she had endured as a mortal would be a major hurtle.

He recalled Sakura's words. "I lived and died in an instant, dreaming all I'd ever been and all I ever would be. I feared and I despaired and I loved and a flame grew inside. It burned bigger and bigger and bigger. And I screamed, I screamed so much that when the time finally came and I fell in battle I had no more breath to scream, all that was left were centuries of tears to cry."

* * *

"This way!" Sakura cleared a path of hollows for Torchwood, running full pelt through the air above the roadway. "OUT OF MY WAY!!! SHAKKAHO!" Hado 31, made massive by the sheer willpower of the wielder, cleared a shockwave of hollows in its wake.

"IKURE SHINSO!" The shout and subsequent attack busted the tires on the SUV and spun out wildly. The owner of the zanpakuto that had just attracked dropped into her view, Gin's usual mocking smile on his face. Just as Sakura remembered him ages ago. Pale hair, pale skin, eyes that remained closed unless he was aiming to killand a foxlike grin. He wore white robes and carried his zanpakuto in a pale blue sash. Perhaps Gin sounded mild mannered and courteous, but his spiritual pressure gave the sensation of being strangled by a hoarde of snakes.

"GIN SLUTTYMARU!" Sakura hissed with a cocky grin on her face, as Jack and his team bolted from the car, grabbing rifles and scanners along the way. "I found you! You're going to PAY!"

"Are are, what have we here? I recognize the shikai....... is that......... ooooh but it is! Gwen Ryuunami, prissy little pampered princess Gwennie. Genryuusai's rising star and Benten's golden girl! I never expected you to be here of all places."

"Its SAKURA now Gin, I'm not a little girl anymore. I've earned my weight in blood, walked mile for mile, step for step with the other Captains. I came all the way back in time, centuries and centuries just so that I could FIGHT YOU!"

"Yah did now? Ah feel special now, ooooooh but you brought an entaurage along....." Gin yawled. "You didn't need to do that......"

"Its their city, they have a right to defend it! Just like Ichigo and his friends are doing in Karakura. What's wrong? I thought you liked an audience." Sakura grinned. "Climbing all over Aizen's lap in your schivies. Just like a manslut."

"What I do in Sou-koi's lap and where when and what are my business. I have full right to give my koibito a lapdance. But I was given orders, I was told, not to leave a trace of my presence here. That includes any witnesses that can place me or my Espada in Cardiff this morning." Gin grinned. "Grimmjow! Stark!"

"Oh do I have to.... I was going to get drunk before the battle." Stark slurred, suddenly appearing out of thin air. Sonido, sonido SO fast that it looked like teleportation. Yoruichi was the only person who could match Stark's speed, and that had Sakura worried. Grimmjow she could count on. It takes a skilled fighter and a lot of trust to 'throw' a fight between rival factions. Sakura was one of the few who could do it. Grimmjow trusted her more than any of the other shinigami, even then. Sakura looked up at Grimmjow, raising her zanpakuto and turning it so that the dragon etched on the massive jagged blade was visible to Grimmjow.

The 6th Espada's eyes trailed Sakura's figure, frowning as he glanced down at Jack and Torchwood one by one, guaging their spiritualpressure and physical health. "Aw you sissy, Stark you get drunk before everything!" Grimmjow grinned. "I'll show you a good time later! Spotted a great bar we can loot on the way home."

"I'll hold you to that." Stark drawled lazily. "hmm...... unusual spiritual pressure from the ringleader, but the women and the fat one are about average I think. They're unusual if they can see us. But the skinny one is a dead man walking. I'll bet one smack and he's snapped like a twig. Oh but the Japanese girl looks cute. I can take her home as a concubine. Lilianette is so cruel on my balls. I'm a hedonist, not a massochist." It was a running joke that Stark's fraccion Lilianette enjoyed molesting her superior, usually by grabbing him between the legs, with seriously painfull results. Seemingly out of her mind, Lilianette thought that by treating her superior's family jewels roughly was a friendly gesture of greeting.

"Heh, those are your enteurage gwennie? I'da thought you had better sense! Unless you brought them here to DIE!" Grimmjow sneered. He leered down at the group. "Honestly, yeh humans baffle me with your stubborn stupidity. I'm hereer. rong to slaughter you and youre making it easy by lining up with your necks stretched out for my pantera!" That was the signal to Sakura, she saw the faint glint in his eyes. What Grimmjow really meant was that Torchwood was very weak in comparison, even the most lowlevel keeper was stonger than them. However, he would do his best to leave them alive after this.

Jack crouched, ready to bolt if he needed it. "Heeeey, you must be Grimmjow! Sakura was full of /glowing/ praise for you. I don't blame her, you're quite a looker you."

Grimmjow sneered. "That's a complement coming from a pretty boy. Your name kid! I wanna know the names of those I'm about to KILL! Sonly Polite."

Jack grinned. "Jack Harkness, captain of Torchwood Hub Three."

"Wha a coincidence." Gin smirked. "I am also a three, or I was. I'm Gin Ichimaru, former captain of squad three. I must say however, your boy over there with the sideburns looks like he'd get along very well with my old lieutenant Izuru, Izuru was a nice lieutenant, I could screw him into oblivion any time I wanted. He wouldn't even put up a fight even if I raked my talons down his back and make him bleed. He still has the scars from it you know. He won't even say no to his fellow lieutenants. I broke him and by the time I left he lost all resistance. Now, your boy over there is too ugly to even think about making love to like my darling Izuru-chan. Oooh, but you look you'd make a nice trophy, Jaackieboy."Gin taunted."I can picture you in a in reverse shohaksho like mine, a hole in yer belly and a nice sexy mask fragment on your jaw for me to kiss! We can do it too. I think I'll slaughter you and your squad, take you back to Hueco Mundo and have Aizen turnn you all into arrancar. You know Gwennie-chan we can do that now. Aizen finished his research on how to turn a human ghost into an arrancar. Your battle at Las Estrellas was in vain. Aizen-sama still figured out how it was done. We'll tear through Cardiff and add your casualties to our army."

"You have no right! This is our city!" Gwen glared up at the trio. "We were here first, we studied the rift you just used to break through here! We know it like the back of our hands. We can't beat you out and out, but we can outsmart you that I promise!

Gin's face curled into a grin. "Grimmjow...." He purred. "Let me take the ringleader and the princess........... the rest of them? take out the trash." Gin's eyes cracked open, crimson slits that focused on Jack. "Ikure, SHINSO!"

Jack yelled as Gin's zanpakuto pinned him to the wall, penetrating ribcage and slicing clear through the bone coming pretty close to severing his arm at the shoulder.

"JACK!" Gwen rushed over, and Grimmjow rushed her in turn, there was no defense, no time to react, he just attacked.

"Sorry....." The Espada whispered in her ear. "I'll try to be gentle, but I could never be as gentle as the lioness fightin theh fox over there...." That was the last thing Gwen heard before Grimmjow swatted her out of the way. Her back hit the SUV with a sickening crack, and she fell.

Ianto raised his gun....... cocked it, pulled the trigger. It was an advanced laser rifle that could penetrate full on alien fightercraft. Grimmjow stopped the blast with one blow of his hand. "Say hi to your maker........" He snarled, whirling. The first kick knocked the gun thirty feet from him, the second swept his legs out from under him, and the third sent Ianto's prone body flying.

"NEXT!" Grimmjow snarled. Sakura struggled to get past Gin, but the Shinigami was moving so quickly that Sakura couldn't protect herself and Torchwood at once. She let out a frustrated scream, and her riatsu SHATTERED the air, shaking the Earth with her outrage and helplessness.

Her scream was answered in kind as Toshiko got a rough punch to the stomach and collapsed, coughing blood, her ribs crushed and struggling to breathe. Gin sneered, turning a crimson eye on Owen. Grimmjow moved in, Owen had a gun raised, just an ordinary pistol. "You aren't scared o me are yeh?" Grimmjow grinned, eyeing the Harper. "you been to the otherside, I can smell it on the reishi that substitutes for yehr air, the spiritual pressure you give off tells me you've been dead and stinkin a long time."

"I'm not afraid of you...... I fought worse........" Owen's voice was cold. "I went a long time ago....." He pulled the trigger. And the glimmer in Grimmjow's eyes was one of solomn respect as he rubbed the scratch the bullet left on his cheek. Arrancar ichor flowing down his mask, "You'd have made a great shinigami kid.......... go talk to Aizen when I knock you from that shell........ he could use a steel faced fighter like yew." Grimmjow grabbed the gun and squeezed. He leaned in and whispered. "I'm sorry....... i held back as best I could........ but you're the only one that can't be fixed from what I'm about to do." The metal bent with a screech, Grimmjow picked up the medic and flung him, hard, into a wall on the opposite side of the street. Owen screamed, one last despairing cry. A corpse can endure many things, but if broken it can't heal. Even if his consciousness survived, Owen was done. Grimmjow chucked away the bent handgun and laughed maniacally.

Jack started to sputter, his ability to come back to life kicking in. "Nnngg.........." Hazy vision showed him something out of his worst nightmares. His teammates torn to pieces, dead or dying. Tears began to fall, "no........." He sputtered. "you'..... you're gonna......... pay......." He struggled against his wounds, unable to rise until the healing process was complete.

"I will... KILL YOU Gin!" Sakura trembled in rage. She hefted her zanpakuto. Saeyamaru's shikai was the length of her body, although Sakura had never been very tall. Blonde hair, emerald green eyes, standing about five feet, probably a little less. Saeyamaru was long, the blade the width of her head. A jagged wave design was carved into the blade, a dragon etched onto the side with an inscription in Ancient Latin above it made the blade very distinctive. If she had time and room to swing it, Sakura could have sent crescents of fire, lightning and ice ploughing through the enemy lines. But the speed of Gin's attacks made it difficult to get one of hers in. And since it was a city, Sakura wasn't able to really cut loose her powers without harming the locals and causing serious collateral damage.

"Are you sure that you can?" Gin sneered. "Your friend there....... he looks pretty........"

The sawing noise cut the air, the form of the Tardis fading slowly into existance. Jack coughed blood and sneered up at Gin......... "The cavelry is here....... and you're going to pay for what you've done....." Each breath struggled, wheezing through blood.

Gin eyed the Tardis with suspicion. "Whah kinda craziness is comin out now?" he demanded.

Stark circled the battlefield, taking up a position behind the Tardis, ready to ambush its occupents should they appear to be a threat. Grimmjow grinned evilly. "The more the merrier."

The door burst open, and Orihime stumbled out in front of the Doctor. Martha bolting for Jack's fallen team members. "I go....."

"No help for them...... cuuuuutie...." Grimmjow grinned, biting his thumb. Ichor trailed down into his fist, which began to glow bluegreen with energy. "ROYAL CE........"

Orihime flew into action. "Santen Kesshun I reject!!!!" The shield spread wide, completely and totally negating the Royal Cero, a technique that made Captain rank Soul Reapers tremble. "NOT TODAY GRIMMJOW!" Orihime's hair blew around her, whipping with the force of the attack she was powering up. Her Shun Shun rikka darted and whirled around her. "The will to kill guides your blade, but the will to protect guides my heart! With Doctor's guidance I can't lose!! I will beat you this time! Without any of the others to save me! I will stop you!"

"ORIHIME!" Sakura cried in relief. "Doctor, how'd you know who to......."

"Awwww, your friend Urahara was pretty helpful. Said that Orihime was the best healer your lieutenant Ichigo had back in the day. I figured......... well......... she's good enough." The Doctor said with a nonchalant shrug. "I rather liked her, didn't you Martha?"

The Medic smiled knowingly. "Sakura!" Orihime had tears in her eyes when she took in the damage Aizen's hollows had done and the wounds that had been inflicted on Jack's team. "GET THE BASTARD! MAKE HIM PAY FOR WHAT HE'S DONE!"

"Orihime Inoue, the girl who's love violates the realm of the gods.........." Gin snickered. "A cowardly ally, without Ichigo and the Quincy and the Giant to help you you're just a scared little redhead with boobs the size of my old Rangiku's. You're just a log uglier and don't have the fight in you. You picked a poor ally, Doctor you said? Well doctor, your lack of firepower will be your undoing."

"Oh well, I've never needed guns, or zanpakuto or kidou or any of that. My firepower is all right up here." Doctor smirked as Orihime's energy began to grow. "As for weak, well, a little confidence goes a long way as far as strength is concerned. All Orihime needed was a little faith and look how strong she is now."

"Heh..... gin some of the Doctor's best friends are redheads." Jack wheezed, coughing up more blood. "Oh boy, this one is going to take hours to heal all the way."

"If you can hang on, I'll have you fixed." Orihime knelt next to Jack, her shun shun rikka darted about her head, taking in the situation and ready to block an attack in an instant.

"Not me, see to my team....... I'll survive......... I heal really quick, but Gwen, Ianto........." He struggled again, tears falling. "Please......."

"Right away! You can count on me!" Orihime started on Gwen, who was nearest. "Soten Kisshun, I reject!" Her little firends carefully encircled Gwen, setting up the healing dome to protect her from harm and heal her wounds.

"That's a neat little trick your friend there has." Doctor grinned, "Anything inside that barrier, well........ her power reverses the fabric of space and time. Handly little trick that, no matter how badly damaged, she can even return the dead to life. Oooh it doesn't just defy the 'realm of the gods' no. It violates the very fabric of time and space. Great ability that..... frankly i'm jealous." Within the glowing half sphere, Gwen suddenly stopped bleeding. Her wounds closed over and the black and blue marks of internal bleeding began to reverse as her wounds slowly melted away.

Gwen groaned, eyes slowly fluttering open..... Martha was bent over her, and the whole world was glowing a bright warm orange. Her fingers and toes tingled with warmth and energy. I was so... comforting that she almost giggled. The oddest sensation filled her, like, like... like a memory of a chilly winter day as a little girl. They were going out to pick a Christmas tree and her mother had brought hot choclate along with them, and her cousins were throwing snowballs at her. Gwen groaned again, rubbing her head as she tried to rise. "Hey....... its okay just lie still." Martha told her. "It'll be over in a minute."

"What... what on earth..." Gwen breathed.

"its okay." Lilly said happily. "I know it seems alarming but my friend Orihime is healing you. The Doctor brought her here to help!!"

"Who are yeh?" Gin eyed Doctor suspiciously. "Yeh look human, but your spiritual pressure's way beyond the others. Its as if I'm lookin at a mortal Kyouraku, or a mortal Ukitake. Yeh got that quality they do........ older than yer years, and I sense a lotta years on yeh."

"I'm the Doctor, I'm a Timelord, and your right. I got a lotta years on me. This world is under my wings, and you're going to turn around right now and leave because if you don't, you're going to regret it."

Grimmjow cackled. "Just a man, ooooh just a man!" He sneered. "No zanpakuto, no firearm, no kidou. You and what army....... doctor? Because that's what we got here."

"ooooh come on, who needs armies or swords or guns. I got all I need right up in here." Doctor tapped his head.

"Unfortunately, your head isn't going to save you if its rollin on the street!" Gin teased. "So if you're done _preachin_ DOCtar, I'm going to kill yeh now."

Orihime looked up in alarm. She was healing Ianto, and while she was healing someone, she couldn't protect someone else! It didn't work that way.

"Slay him SHINSO!" Gin snarled, eye cracking open once more.

There was a huge, earthshattering roar. "DIALGA!!!!!" Jenny cried. "Hyperbeam! Do it!"

_"You will not harm a Child of Galifrey........"_ Dialga growled, and the hyperbeam caused Gin to break off his attack and for him to scatter. Stark ducked out of the way of a second attack, and Grimmjow landed one punch, one, before Dialga opened his mouth. A vicious snarl loosed a ripple of sapphire blue energy that tore every hollow it touched to shreds and pushed the Espada and Gin slowly back, preventing Gin from using his shikai. "_Roar of time!! Die Demon!!"_

At the same time, a call rang out. "RASENGAN!"

"CHIDORI 1000 BIRDS!"

"TAKE THAT!" A blur of orange and blue and red each vaulted from Dialga's back.

"Naruto! Sakura! Sasuke!" Sakura cried in relief.

"Jenny came to get us! She said our future selves sent her for us, and that we'd better hurry up quick!" Naruto flashed a cheesy grin. "Sasuke! Let's bag us some hollows!"

"Dobe, just stay close to the battlefield. Doctor might need us." Sasuke said coldly.

"Sorry I'm late dad. I hope you don't mind that I brought some friends with me. We had to run pretty fast to get here." Jenny said with a grin. "I'm just sorry we missed the beginning of the party."

Orihime called out. "I'm almost done here!" She was finishing up healing Toshiko. "Lie still..........." She warned the Japanese woman in her native tongue. "I'm Orihime, Doctor brought me to help you......."

"a..... arigatou......" Toshiko sputtered, "nani.....ka?"

"You're going to be fine......" Martha assured her.

"Owen..... owen he......." Toshiko looked horrified when she saw the mess Grimmjow had made of Owen. "Oh god no. Owen, oweeen!!" Toshiko struggled against the healing shield. "Let me out! Let me out I have to get to hime! Owen! Owen wake up! Please!" Toshiko was nearly hysterical.

"Woah! Woah! Jeeze lady will you hold still???" Tsubaki sputtered. The shun shun rikka rocked with Toshiko's attempts to break free. "Orihime is going to help your friend. But if you died too his sacrifice for you would be uselsess."

"Toshiko, calm down, Its pretty bad. I'm sorry. Orihime thinks she can fix the damage but......." Martha frowned looking anxiously over at the battle where Sakura was struggling to hold back Gin.

"you won't get the chance........." Grimmjow raised his zanpakuto. "GRIND PANTERA!"

Thick, thorny stems of wood a foot thick and sparking psychic energy rose around the Espada and clamped down hard, binding him in place with a sickening crack. "You won't lay a hand on any of them." A red haired woman stepped from the nearby alley.

A flying little green form singing happily swooped after her. "BI BI CELEBI!" Celebi crooned, perching happily on the Tardis. "Bi bi bi cele bi.........." It sang, spreading a sing attack to try and keep Grimmjow hypnotized in its coils and soothe the anxious humans on the street below.

"I'll die before I let you harm a hair on the Doctor's head." Donna said with a low growl. The look on her face was......... eerie. "I've been cooped up for 500 years with nobody to talk to. I never got to say goodbye to any of my friends, I never got to see the sky......... I was alone and scared and now that I have him back, you are NOT taking the Doctor away from me."

"Aaaah, and the little wench has a bit more fight in her than you do Doctor. I can sense it, your hands are innocent and soft, never held a gun or a blade in yer life. Yer friend, she's got key callouses on her fingers. She definately knows what she's about." Gin grinned mockingly.

"DONNA!" Martha's cry was one of relief. "You came!"

"Oh I wasn't gonna miss this." Donna's look was of a panther that has finally broken free from an eternity in a cage. "I'm never gonna be left behind when I'm needed again."

Suddenly the cage of branches broke to pieces, Grimmjow was in his fully released form, eyes blazing, fangs bared in an absolutely evil grin. "Nice trick girly........." He sneered.

"CELEBI!" Donna commanded.

"BI!" Suddenly a protective cage of branches rose out of the ground, snapping closed around the Tardis. A barrier of psychic energy spread between the branches, the timeship completely protected in its clasp.

"And that shield is another trick. I'm not letting you through. Your attack on my world ends HERE." Donna growled. Tears filled her eyes, pain and helplessnes and outrage. And she knew something, that was visible in her eyes. She knew what was going to happen and she didn't care.

"our hollows fill the sky, even tnow they're escaping into beyond, scattering over the world. We'll take what we want of this place and run. Pirates maybe, conquistadors definately." Gin chuckled. "Grimmjow, why don't you show them how strong we are?"

Grimmjow whistled "HEY GUYS!" He called up to the hollows. "COME DOWN HERE AND HAVE A MEAL!" Hollows swept in, only to be blown back by a tide of their own comrades.

A black cat fell to the ground, landing on her feet and looking up at the Doctor. "I'm sorry I'm late Doctor. I was on patrol. Jack told me and Lelouche to take out as many hollows as we can. It took us awhile." Yoruichi told him. "Lelouce was trying out a new technique with his geass."

The Doctor eyed the cat. "Dunno who you are, but if you're a friend of Jack you can't be that bad."

"I'm Yoruichi. You wouldn't know it from looking at me in this form, but the shinigami call me 'Goddess of Flash' for a reason." Yoruichi purred. "Unfortunately, if I change form here I'll be nude. Somehow I don't think that would be a good idea."

"Where /is/ Lelouche?" Gwen asked, but a growl behind them answered her.

Lelouche was riding a black, horselike hollow. Its face and mask resembled a lion. Its mane was a deep, almost black, shade of blue. Flames formed fetlocks on its massive wolfpaws. Its tail and rear legs resembled a wolf, and as it turned, his Zero helmet became visible. "I apologize for being late. It took awhile to figure out how to get my Geass to work on the hollows. But I brought reinforcements." Trust Lelouche to make a dramatic entrance. He was in full Zero mode, turning all his tactical talents and charming powers of manipulation to his advantage.

"ZERO!" Sakura cried in relief.

"Sakura, thank you so much for coming to our aid. If there's anything you need, simply name it." Lelouche turned his mount. "My friends back home call me a genius, despite this I'm not very strong or fast on my own, my best talent is to manipulate the strings from the rear, watching carefully over those whom I've lead onto the chessboard to see that they come to no harm, and make sure that the victory was truely something of their own doing."

Up above the battlefield, the hollows were tearing each other apart, as Lelouche's Geass corrupted ones broke through the swarm. Hollows disappeared into the islands of the United Kingdom, but way, way too many of them were torn to pieces and sent over to the other side. Grimmjow cursed, Stark's lip twisted in amusement. "Are, are, its turning into a mess up there. Stark, have the Adjuchas get in there and restore order. Send Lillianette if you must."

"Of course, had my balls busted enough today, I can handle her busting a couple more." Stark snickered, disappearing.

"oh yeah, I forgot, Lillianette likes grabbing people's junk for the fun of it. PAINFUL." Grimmjow snickered. "That's why I don't take fraccion, don't need them. I'm more than a match for almost anything you can throw at me. Sakura knows that pretty damn well. Doncha?"

"Nice work.........." Jack smiled weakly at Lelouche. "Remind me never to make you angry."

Sakura moved to the forefront, trying to stall Gin while Orihime healed Owen. "Of course. Many, MANY of the badguys in this universe are difficult for a shinigami to defeat, especially Dahleks. Their pod casings are EXTREMELY dense. Very few NORMAL weapons can defeat them. In order for a shinigami or arrancar to fight them, you would need an INCREDIBLY high spiritual pressure. Seat or Lieutenant can beat an individual, but they tend to swarm in numbers whenever possible. A captain rank shinigami or Vaizard or Espada would be the only ones that have a prayer of beating a swarm of them. Many of the enemies that are easy for Doctor or Torchwood or Sarah Jane to defeat, are difficult for shinigami by the very nature of their abilities."

On his feet finally, Ianto rushed over to the Captain's side. "You alright?"

"I've been better. I told Orihime to heal all of you first." Jack indicated the redhead bent over Owen's battered form.

"She can't fix Owen though...... can she?" Toshiko's face was horrified at the mess that Grimmjow had made of her friend. "Martha, that's what you said didn't you? If Owen is damaged then he can't be fixed."

"She's not sure, but she's sure as hell trying." Martha assured Toshiko, her own gaze just as scared. "She's a very powerful healer. Doctor said he was actually jealous of her abilities!"

"Please...... please........." Orihime begged. "I feel it. I feel your anguish and despair. Come back! there are people here who love you, who need you. Don't slip into the darkness......... it has to hurt........ it has to hurt so bad........ please, please be strong....... FIGHT IT......." She looked up. "He's giving up....." Orihime's face was pale with fright. "If you told him to live, would he listen to you?"

"What kind of question is that?" Toshiko's face blanched.

"Place your hand on my shoulder," Orihime told her. "I'll pull your energy into mine, and think the command with all your might. /TELL/ him to live. ORDER him to do it." She looked over at Sakura and the Doctor. The shinigami had fallen into a fighter's crouch, Jenny had fallen back, placing herself and Dialga firmly between Doctor and Gin. Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura (haruno) had formed a staggered line in front of Jack's team. "Sakura, you need to finish this! Its taking me AGES to heal Owen and he's fighting me every step. My spiritual pressure will give out right after I finish. I won't be able to fight anymore!" Orihime called out. She said sharply. "TOSHIKO-chan, your hand, PLEASE."

"Right!" The Japanese woman placed her hand on Orihime's shoulder. Orihime closed her eyes, the glow from the healing technique intensified.

"Orihime!" Tsubaki called out. "We're trying our best, his physical wounds are healing but his chakra network is shot to hell! What should we do?"

"It might have been him being resurrected." The healer frowned, worry written all over her face. Orihime looked over at Toshiko and Gwen. "How long has he been walking dead?"

"Months, he tried more than once to damage himself." Gwen told her. "What's wrong?"

"His chakra network, its been damaged. It will take a lot of energy to fix!" Orihime bit her lip. "If his body is repaired but his chakra network isn't he'll die all over again. Toshiko close your eyes and THINK. WILL him to heal."

"Understood." Sakura eyed Donna. "If you have an ace up your sleeve, now's the time."

"Funny you should mention, I came prepared."

"Jutsu, alchemy, or some other form of magic or psudo science?" Sakura asked with a grin spreading over her face.

"Jutsu, always one of my best skills. I do okay with Alchemy I just don't have the patience for it." Donna told her. "I asked for one other reinforcement, she'll come as soon as she can get ahold of Delphine or a dragonrider to take her here."

"Good." Sakura nodded. "Your trumpcard?"

"Oh, this?" She pulled off her jacket, revealing two sets of protective gear. Bandages wrapped around the arms almost to the shoulder. A protective rubber net had pinned the bandaging to her arms.

Sasuke's eyes widened. "Donna no you can't!" Sasuke warned. "Only an Uchiha or Hyuuga can use........"

"Its alright, you taught it to me, or you will....." Donna said with a faint smile. "I know what I'm doing." She closed her eyes, gripping her arm to steady it. Suddenly gold sparks of electricity danced to life along her arm. The limb started to shake, Donna grimacing and squeezing her arm in an effort to steady it. It was clear that she was in pain, and struggling to control the technique.

"Wait...... what's she doing........." Doctor asked in alarm. "What's wrong?" He demanded of Sasuke and Naruto, who had just blocked some incoming hollows.

"Chidori 1000 birds, its a technique perfected by my sensei Kakashi." Sasuke told him. "It combines synapses and chakra into lightning. It causes arm tremor because she's handling electricity and its going through her arm, nerve, muscle and bone. A person using the Chidori has to steady their arm with the other limb. Its a headlong charge hanging on to a ball of lightning." Sasuke bit his lip. "But that's not the biggest danger of using it...... and Gin and Grimmjow both know it......... there's a reason only Uchiha or Hyuuga use the technique..... WE have better eyesight than other humans........"

"Oh god, golden chakra..........." Jenny's eyes widened. "It can't be......" She breathed in shock.

Before any questions could be demanded of her, Donna charged. Her roar of outrage as she plunged towards Gin and Grimmjow. She'd forgotten, or maybe she knew and ignored it, that Gin had dismissed Stark to deal with Lelouche's corrupted hollows.

Donna's eyes blearily focused on Gin's face, ready to plant a hand sparking with lightning chakra on his face and rub that smirk right off it. But then Gin smirked, turning an eye that cracked open, the red orb promising NOTHING good.

Then Stark blindsided Donna, shoving a hand through her side. She stumbled, then got rammed out of the way at a sonido speed that some arrancar would MURDER to have. "Sorry, human. But the rib I just broke either punctured a lung. Or, if I'm REALLY lucky, stuck right into your heart. You shouldn't have more than sixty seconds to live after that."

Coughing blood, a wicked grin crossed Donna's face as she gasped out. "Its a good thing I have two of them......." It was very faint.

The others didn't hear it, Martha bolting out of cover to get to Donna. Sakura joined her, the pink haired medic nin kneeling by her. "Stupid stupid stupid stupid........" Sakura started to cry, her hand glowing, trying frantically to stop the bleeding.

Donna smiled faintly, eyes falling closed, body going slack. "D...... donna no....." Martha's eyes widened.

Donna's words were barely audible. "Its okay Martha, even if I'm not the same Donna Noble that you knew. I'll still be....." The shimmer was faint at first, the barest hint of gold tracing her features. But it grew stronger and stronger...... brightening.

"Martha-san, what is it?" Martha's jaw dropped, eyes turning huge.

"MOVE!" Martha hauled Sakura back just the instant the glow burst into full prominence. "How the hell.......... she just..... did she......" martha looked like she'd just seen a ghost.

The glow faded, and the Donna that lay there was not the same fiery redhead. She had short, very curly black hair about down to her ears, olive skin with a deep, healthy tan. Smaller, petit, perfect build in proportion to her body. And there was DEFINATELY muscle to her shoulders. Martha darted over, "Donna...... Donna wake up..... answer me!"

Donna stirred, a smile curling her features, "I said, Stark hurt my chest I couldn't speak, I said its a good thing I've got two hearts....." Tears flowed from the sides of her closed eyes. "She's coming........."

"It must have been terrible, being all alone like that. Five hundred years without a companion. without friends and lovers and comrades to make life bearable." Sakura said quietly. "her shield became her prison. And she was trapped on her own without her friends to help her. Jack, and Martha, and Jenny and doctor and everyone didn't know she existed. She had to watch them from afar, and pray that one of them would remember she was there." Sakura shook her head. "She would rather have regenrated than let her friends die and spend all of etern ity alone."

A bugle and a rush of cold air above them, suddenly hollows started exploding, just exploding. "RUSH THE STARS, KOKEBARA YURETSU!!!!!" Something shrieked, a flash of scarlet, a whirl of honeygold hair and black shinigami robes. A tornado of shrieking electricity, deadly golden starshine and hellish red light tore across the battlefield. Suddenly Gin was bleeding, and she was standing there, like an avenging angel coming down out of the heavens. her expression and posture a goddess come to smite Gin, Grimmjow, Starkand any hollow that got in her way.

"Who the hell are you?" Grimmjow demanded.

There was a blur of black robes and blonde hair, and suddenly a Roman short sword glowing with a whirl of glowing, maliciously scarlet energy tore the air. Grimmjow was using ressurecion and the woman didn't care. "Shinigami 9th Division 4th seat." The kick sent Grimmjow reeling and right after he was dripping arrancar ichor, a hole literally BORED into his shoulder. "Rose Tyler."

"ITS ABOUT TIME GIRL!" Sakura cheered. Grimmjow turned, his left arm hanging limp.

"Kokebara Yuretsu, Portulaca valor, the flower that clings to the cliff for dear life and never gives in no matter how horrible the circumstances." Sakura said with a curl of a smile crossing her lips. "Clung to life like I clung to the doctor, and I came back to him, even after all those centuries I returned. And now, now Gin, for Jack, For Doctor, For Martha and Donna, I am going to make you BLEED from places you didn't think it was possible!!!"

This Rose was older, almost 30. But the honey gold hair, the dark eyes that burned with fire. "With the command 'Rush the stars' my spiritual energy pours into my zanpakuto. It forms petals, a blossom of energy, then the blossom breaks, the petals scatter and rotate in a ring around the base of the blade. The blade hardens, becoming hard as diamonds, the petals create electricity and act like a drill. If I combine the technique with my shunpo, I can stab, burn and shred a hole in an enemy before they even know that I'm there..... the energy builds the longer the petals rotate." She said in the quiet tone that meant she was trying to decide whether to throttle Gin or throw her arms around the Doctor. "Donna asked me to come as soon as I could. It takes awhile to get a dragonrider enough between coordinates to go back over 500 years, and even more to find a dragonrider who's Weyrleader is willing to let him do it. Sh'ner and bronze Siviath." She looked worriedly over at Donna. "I guess I was too late."

"Orihime, status on Owen....." Martha called.

"he's not fighting me anymore. His chakra network is a mess, but its usable. I'm almost there!" Orihime sounded frantic, giving Toshiko instructions in Japanese. The older woman resting her head against Orihime's, "you're doing very well Toshi-chan. You're being a very good help thank you."

"naruto, sasuke........"

"YOURE OURS GRIMMJOW!" Naruto and Sasuke charged, chidori and rasengan beared. Naruto's eyes had slitted, and the cursemark had started to spread into existance down Sasuke's neck and face. The trio flew into furious action. Sakura turned to Rose. "Rose, pick a target, any target. JENNY, get into the sky with Dialga and take down as MANY hollows as you can tear to pieces."

"I don't need to be told twice!" Jenny said gleefully as she hopped onto Dialga's back. "You know, Dialga, we should make this a more permanent partnership. I could use a friend with a built in gun." Was the last thing that could be neard as Dialga sprung into the sky.

"Oh I like her." Rose agreed. "STARK!" She grinned, darting in in a shunpo that could keep up with an arrancar easy.

"Then I got Gin." Sakura snickered, "BANKAI! Kurusadori Saeyamaru!" Armor shimmered into place over Sakura's body. Her sword elongated into a bladed dao. A pair of bright red wings, covered in glossy scarlet feathers, burst from her back. A helmet shaped loosely like a dragon and covered in tourqouise and topaz clinked into place over her eyes and a mane of feathers spread backwards from the helmet.

Gin was, unfortunately, too fast. The instant Sakura charged he disappeared. Sakura darted in the direction he had gone. "He's gone....... the Tardis, oh please let him not have tried to......."

But the hollows began to thin out, disappearing after a four hour swarm. When Sakura touched down, Rose did as well, and Naruto and Sasuke followed suit. "They retreated." Sasuke reported.

"Rose scared them off didn't she?" Naruto asked, eyeing the woman.

"No......" Rose said calmly. "My spiritual pressure isn't strong enough, they got the number of hollows they wanted to get through, through. This isn't....."

"ROSE!" Jack beamed. "How the hell did you get here, and you're....... older!"

"Older than you Jack." Rose chuckled, making her way over to her old friend. She reached down to try and lift the Torchwood captain out of danger.

"HOW." Martha demanded.

Rose tapped her zanpakuto, returning it to its unreleased state. "Shinigami..... I died, they took me to Soul Society. I enjoyed the afterlife for a few centuries, and decided I didn't want to stay dead anymore. The shinigami were willing to let a former companion into their academy, and I passed with flying colors. I'm a kidou specialist though. Not so good with a zanpakuto."

"you look good for a dead woman." Jack joked. "how about a little help."

"TIME travel?"

"Yeah, the Timelords aren't the only ones that know how. Sh'ner gave me a lift. And Setsuna is going to come get me in a couple of hours." Rose bent down, carefully helping the Torchwood captain to his feet and letting him lean on her. "You gained weight."

"I did not."

"You're heavier."

"I am not." Jack chuckled.

Jenny touched down. "One of dad's friends?"

"Yeah, and Ill see you when you head back to the soul society. Lelouche goes home and you're to take Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke to meet Sarah Jane. They're going to blitz through London over the next two weeks and as soon as Gin's sensors pick up Mister Smith, Sarah Jane will have a target on her back." Rose told Jenny. "Donna, you're an idiot." She sighed. "You regenerated just to try to put a bullet in Gin's head."

Jenny took Jack, easing him into a position to speak to the downed female timelord. Rose knelt next to Donna and brushed the hair back from her eyes. Donna didn't open her eyes, stirring slightly. "You weren't.......... going to get here in time. The Doctor, Gin was going to kill him. FOR REAL. He needed us........ I saw what was going to happen if I didn't show up. You'd have...... gotten here too late. Gin would have killed him and taken the Tardis. And if I didn't come, someone would be lying here dead in my place."

Donna sounded sleepy and extremely enervated. Martha knelt on Donna's other side, "Rose while you're here, help me move her. Donna can you stand?"

"I can't even move." Donna said weakly. "My body won't work right."

"Here....." Doctor picked Donna up. "You're a lot lighter now, you know the last time I carried you home I thought my arms were going to fall off." He joked, a look of relief crossing his features.

"You're still absolutely mad." Donna mumbled, that hasn't changed. "Your friend...... Jack......" She warned.

There was a scream from Orihime's direction. Owen had come to, gasping and sputtering. "Breath..... I can..... breathe but..... oh god my body feels like........."

"Like shit....." Jenny helped Jack over to his team. "Welcome back Owen....."

Orihime blushed. "I couldn't help it." She said quietly. "My power turns back the clock, it can't /just/ repair his corpse, it repairs him all the way. And I think I'm going to pa........" Orihime collapsed, Gwen caught her.

Rose and Jenny kept their distance. Martha hurried to Owen next. "lie still..... you've been through hell, lie still......"

"Grimmjow..... he...... apologized.............." Owen swooned. "I can breathe again.... wha........ what......" he sounded dazed, and Sakura couldn't blame him.

The doctor chuckled, shifting an enervated Donna to his back so his hands were free. "Orihime Inoue, the one human that the shinigami underestimate the most. Her power allows her to deny events. It has three abilities, attack that cuts through anything, a shield that repells anything, and an ability that heals everything. Her ability to attack is fueled by anger and hatred. There isn't a malicious bone in her body, which means that her attack power is extremely limited. Most of the time her friends assume she needs protection. But Orihime is the best one to do the protecting. Her shield saved the Tardis from being blown to bits by a cero blast. Her ability to heal is said to 'violate the realm of the gods.' What it really does is defy the laws of time and space." The Doctor explained.

"Its extremely dangerous, by its very nature she shouldn't exist. The psyche that can spawn that kind of ability is either the most loving or the most fearful person in the world. She defied the laws of time and space and reverted your body to the way it had been probably the morning of the day you died. But doing so exhausted her to the point of collapse." The Doctor looked down at the gathered Torchwood members and the newly revived Owen. "You fought her every step of the way, guess you really did have a death wish."

"I was so tired........ and there was nothing I could have done to come back."

"You gave up." Yoruichi said calmly as Celebi took down the barrier around the Tardis, "Doctor, Donna was exercising a sense that she saw YOU display....... ages and ages ago, at Pompeii. You can sense when there's something wrong with the Timestream, Donna could sense the same. If she didn't act, you were going to die, and she'd already seen what happens without you."

"She went through all this trouble?"

"She learns fast." Rose said with a small smile. "Doctor, you don't realize the effect you have on people. You inspire strength, you inspire hope, and you move people to action. Me, Jack, Martha, Donna, Sarah Jane, you gave us something important, the will to protect. Its something...... well..... Sarah Jane is long gone in my time, but Jack, Martha and Donna are still around. Its the kind of thing that you can't put a name to without centuries of wisdom and thought. The four of us were scattered to the winds, Martha and me in the Soul Society, Jack I don't know where, Donna on shield station. We had centuries to remember."

Donna's head slumped against the Doctor's shoulder. "The hub is closest." Jack pointed out. "I've seen the Tardis carry more."

"Yeah. Get your people in. This is the only ride you guys are getting. Martha, take care of Orihime. I'll take Donna. Sakura, Rose, Yoruichi..... Jenny take team 7 up to Sarah Jane and tell her what's happened."

"sure, DAD, but you're introducing me to your friends when I get back." Jenny winked at Rose. "Dad never said you were so beautiful. Now I know why he loves you so much. By the way, SWEET save. Wanna share a drink when we get back?"

"Oooooh no you don't." Doctor's face started twiching.

"Did she just......." Rose's face turned red. "HIT on........"

"Yeah, she did." Sakura laughed. "But you are cute........." She hummed. "martha's cuter though."

"I forget, Sakura Ryuunami, the village womanizer." Rose rolled her eyes, a smile on her face. "Need help Jack?" She propped the Torchwood captain up.

"Alright, to the Hub we go.... you guys okay?"

"We will be." Gwen looked absolutely exhausted. "The hollows got away."

"Yeah, but if I know Donna, reinforcements are going to come." Doctor chuckled. "She never knew when to quit."

* * *

There was a rush of air outside of Sarah Jane's house. "Is that them?" Maria stood up, she, Luke, Clyde and Sarah Jane had been waiting in the living room for Lelouche and Yoruichi to return. The quartet hurried for the door to see who had arrived.

"No, but somebody's been hoping to meet you." Washu said with a small smile, she stood and opened the door. "Hmmm...... SASUKE, I hear you've been a bad boy lately."

"Save it." Sasuke sounded exhausted. He, Naruto and Sakura climbed off of Dialga's back. "There was a hollow swarm. Jack almost died, Owen came back to life, Rose came back in time to be annoying. Doctor was nearly eaten. And my prized technique has been stolen by a bratty suicidal female timelord..... no offense to present company..... And I'm stuck working with dobe over here." He jerked his thumb at Narut

"I HEARD that!" Naruto blushed, growling.

"Jenny." Jenny held out her hand for Sarah Jane's. "I heard about you from dad. He said I should bring these three to you."

"Dad?"

"The Doctor. I'm his daughter." Jenny said with a mischievious smirk on her face. "And a genin gatekeeper, savant of Chronos. These are Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura, Team 7. My friend behind me is Dialga." She pulled back her sleeve. "Wow, this thing digs in. No wonder Dad doesn't like using it." She meant the red chain used to summon Dialga. "Or maybe he just doesn't like you?" She asked the dragon.

_"The last child of galifrey dislikes firearms. His soul is that of a warrior saddened by the ages. He sees me as overkill, it is not neccessary for me to leave spear pillar. The Voice of Time is a creature more suited to his spirit than I."_

"Yeah, well he was GIVEN you."

_"He has the tardis to travel in."_ Dialga bowed politely before Sarah Jane. _"You are an apprentice to the Last Son of Galifrey........ it is a pleasure to meet a spirit of your elegance."_

"I'm flattered." Sarah Jane smiled up at Dialga.

"I'm Luke, nice to meet you Naruto. These are Maria and Clyde."

"Well, you two aren't leaving us without dinner." Sarah Jane insisted. "And you can tell me what happened in Cardiff. Are Jack and his team okay?"

"Torn to pieces, but they'll be fine." Jenny's stomach rumbled. Dialga growled, shrinking from the size of a horse to the size of a large dog. "And you would NOT believe what Donna did, personally? I think her newly regenerated form is much more suited to her personality."

"REGENWHAT???" Sarah Jane's jaw dropped, face paling in fright.

"the incident on the Crucible, she started turning into a timelord. Dad thought he'd stopped it by surpressing her memories."

"But he was wrong." Washu explained. "There will likely be some gatekeepers paying her past self a visit in Chiswik in a few days."

"Probably Yoruichi or Urahara." Jenny speculated. "Urahara might be able to spark something in her, the way Dad did."

"No, it will be Yoruichi and Lelouche. I'll be waiting for them outside. Jenny, are you going to keep the red chain?" CC asked bluntly.

"Yeah, Dad didn't want Dialga. And I need to travel in time somehow. Donna has Celebi to help her." Jenny sighed. "That's why Neji needed to look at my chakra network. I needed to be able to recognize a timelord's chakra. Sasuke, that Chidori, is it blue?"

"its supposed to be, but when I use my cursemark or Naruto uses the Kyuubi our bodies glow purple and red respectively. I wasn't sure what power Donna was using when her chakra turned gold like that. Is that something Timelord's do often?"

"Regenerating? Not if we can help it. But that's why Neji said 'Two chakra networks and three times as many tenketsu. Chakra comes out of tenketsu yeah?"

"Yep, that's actually the secret to a Timelord's regeneration. Twice as much chakra as a normal human, two chakra networks makes blocking chakra flow almost impossible." Washu explained. "And 3 times as many tenketsu ensure chakra release. Its nature's recipe for a species that can regenerate the way you Timelords do." She grinned. "Come inside Jenny. You need food, and I need to pick your brains about what happened in Cardiff."

"That reminds me, you guys are about to have a big Hollow problem." Jenny frowned, following Washu and CC inside.

* * *

Doctor set Donna gently on the medical bed. "She'll be completely exhausted for awhile..... 500 years without regenerating, she'll have exhausted her chakra completely with what she did today."

"Orihime looks like she's going to be alright as well...." Martha finished checking her over. "its almost..... its almost like she's in a coma but....."

"That's what happens when you exhaust your chakra." Explained Rose as she looked on. "You fade in and out of consciousness for a week or ten days. Usually the longest is 2 weeks. Neither Donna nor Orihime have any chakra left to use. She was seriously wounded while using a rank A jutsu. Even if she survived and regenerated, she still hemmoraged enough chakra to keep her out for that time. Orihime brought you back Owen. Your chakra network had been torn to pieces by being a walking deadman. It took her power and Toshiko's chakra to do it."

Owen was seated, half dressed on one of the medical beds. "I could hear her, screaming. Chakra network, what's that?"

"Humans aren't particularly aware of it, shinigami can sense its quality and interuptions in it that could signal death or impending death." Rose explained. "Timelords use it all the time, it fuels their brainpower, their ability to regenerate, their longevity. All sentient beings have a pathway through which their spiritual energy flows. Chakra, life force, is created in the heart, it pushes it through the body too. Chakra maintains the life of the body just as much as organs like the brain and lungs do." She smiled wanely at Owen. "your mind was in the right place, but your chakra network was decaying something crazy."

Rose sighed. "I don't have much time. Setsuna is going to pull me back soon." She said with a reluctant sigh.

"Wait he....." Martha set down her clipboard and walked over, surprised that she was actually looking UP at Rose. The shinigami was a few inches taller than she was. This wasn't the same girl she'd met trapped in the Crucible. Her face was careworn and her eyes sad. "You made him whole...... he was in such pain without you....... and there's.... there's so much I want to ask you......"

Rose smiled faintly. "You'll have the chance." She said bitterly. "In 500 years you'll get your chance." She called out, as a faint pale mist appeared behind her. "Setsuna, is it time?"

"Yes, I apologize all of you. Rose Tyler has to go back to the time she belongs in. Sakura can get into the alternate reality, you cannot."

"But what happens?" Martha demanded. "What happens to you? Your eyes are in such pain. You said we were all still here, 500 years from now..... what happened to put us there?"

Rose pulled Martha into a hug, holding the younger version of her fellow shinigami tightly, "What's to come...... as much as I want SO MUCH to help you. The doctor will be the first to say that some things can be changed, and there are somethings that have been, and so MUST be." Rose had tears in her eyes, "You'll have the chance to ask me again." She promised.

Setsuna's sailor suited figure appeared faintly in the mist, clutching her staff. "I'll see you soon Doctor, when you keep your bargain with Sakura." The senshi turned a sad smile on Rose. "Come on Tyler....... Ichigo and Karin want to know if their captain is alright."

"Alright....." She turned to leave, but stopped and said over her shoulder. "Doctor......." But her form faded away before she could finish. Setsuna vanished as well, back to the timegates, the mist retreated.

Martha turned around and walked out of the infirmary. "Owen, you're going to be okay physically, why don't you get some rest?"

"Sure...... something wrong Martha?"

"Nothing..... Doctor keep an eye on Donna, Orihime too. Tell me if either wake up." Martha's turned back hid a face dark and worried. As soon as she was out the door, she looked for Sakura. "Sakura......" The shinigami was on a level overlooking the floor of the Torchwood control room.

"What's wrong?" Sakura sighed,

"Rose, there was a shadow in her eyes. I've seen what it did to Owen......" Martha said quietly. "....... what's it like..... to die, to become a shinigami...... what happens to me years and years from now? What am I like?"

Sakura watched below as Jack's team shared sober drinks with Yoruichi and Lelouche. "The shadow in Rose's eyes isn't just because of Death Martha. The Gatekeepers know that something horrible is going to happen. They aren't sure where or when. And when it happens it will be bigger and more horrible than the Master. It will cause more destruction than the Dahleks, because it won't just be one dimension. It will be nearly all of them. And when its done, there will be no Gatekeeper untouched. Brothers, sisters, lovers, mothers and fathers, comrades, there will be no keeper that hasn't lost a friend, a comrade, a sibling, a son or daughter, or a parent. I lost the two most beautiful women in the world. And my children lost two mothers......" Sakura shook her head.

"As for Death, its possible to be physically living and still be dead. Physical death is......" Sakura closed her eyes. "...... pain, anguish, but serene, peaceful." Sakura was struggling for the correct way to describe it. "There's a horrible wrenching feeling inside you as the chain of fate breaks..... then you're looking at yourself......" She had tears in her eyes as she looked over at the other woman. "And you're thinking..... god, I look horrible. How could I have broken like that....." Sakura wiped at her eyes. "....... and its over, its finally over..... I'm free........" She sighed. "I beat Szayel Apollo Grantz, but he...... Szyael is not above using things like poison, or disease, to kill his victims. I'd been poisoned, I'd already been torn to bits by one of his previous attacks. I'd lost the two people most important to me, I was ready to go."

"What about....... future me..... is she?"

"Why should I tell you?" Sakura asked. "I don't know how or when you went. I didn't see you until you'd graduated the academy. What's wrong.....?"

"I never thought, or worried about the future. I knew it was full of things so incredible that the imagination could NEVER in a million years have imagined them. After all I fight aliens, and I traveled with Doctor! But I never thought about my place IN it." Martha said quietly. "And the instant I did, I'm scared." Martha said quietly. "I guess I need a shinigami to tell me its okay......"

"That is..... well, it won't be my job for awhile ye....." Martha threw her arms around Sakura and just started to cry. "Yet....." Sakura finished, carefully easing the other young woman to the floor. Sakura realized, she'd fought all this time in her robes, in plain sight. She pulled off her captain's jacket and wrapped it around Martha and just let the woman cry. "You must have kept so much stuck up inside you....." She said quietly. "..... nobody can bear that kind of burden without a shadow coming to their eyes. I..... I guess when I was still alive I was a lot like you. I was a blushing little schoolgirl who met a remarkable woman. I fell in love with her, but she flat out refused me, pining after somebody I didn't meet until much later. I hung on tight to the people I cared for, so tight that if any of them were lost to me, they'd take some part of my soul with them. I knew pain, and love, and joy, and helplessness and outrage. I kept it all bottled inside me because I didn't want to see my friends crying for me." Sakura guided Martha back against the wall and let her cry.

"What did it for you?"

"Hmmm?"

"The shadow, what brought it to your face.....?"

Sakura paused for a moment. "500 years later, I never talk about it to anyone. Someone very very evil used the face of somebody I loved to...... trick me, and fool me, and when my guard was down that very very evil someone...... raped me so badly that I lost what would have been my first born son. Worse, that very very evil someone used my lover and best friend as a shield as well as a mask. They were two halves of a person I loved so bad........ even 500 years later I will do anything for. One the original, the good one, the other the manifestation of EVERYthing negative about that original's personality. If I killed one, then the other would die too.

"The evil one was sealed back into the original, who remembered the rape so vividly that even if it wasn't her fault, even though she wasn't the one who did it or the one to blame, she couldn't look me in the eye again, couldn't touch me again." Sakura said quietly. "And the scars left behind. Oh yeah I had scars. I got a buck fifty on this cheek right here."

"A gang inflicted wound to the cheek, which gets its name from the need for 150 stiches to heal it." Martha muttered.

"Yeah, as a doctor you'd probably know what that means. And there was also a burn scar that went from my chin to my hip. The evil one, her attacks were CORROSIVE. One scratch and it looked like acid had been dragged over my body. My first born son died still inside of me........ all my life as a gatekeeper up until then I wanted a family of my own. I covered my front and cheek with tattoos, to preserve the honor of the friend who's evil half had done this." Sakura's eyes focused past Martha, as she spotted Jack making for them. She shook her head, mouthing, 'later.'

"How old were you?" Martha sounded tired. She was still hanging onto Sakura, the way a child hangs on to a mother or a sister.

"I had just turned 17. And a few months later I became a shinigami. I was a shinketsu, a creature that straddles life and death, a shinigami inhabiting a mortal body." She chuckled, stroking Martha's hair gently. "My lieutenant, Ichigo, was a shinketsu as well. Sometimes his duties had him running off like a superhero." Sakura smiled. "I'd met Motoko, and loved her even more than I had the partner I'd had before. I FINALLY had a child of my own, my daughter Hanabi. The name means fireworks."

Martha chuckled, "Must have been something raising her." She sounded at once, depressed and exhausted. And Sakura couldn't blame her.

"Yeah. I met my grandfather, someone that I didn't know I had waiting for me. Turns out that he's Motoko's boss. That's how I met her. I beat somebody the gatekeepers thought could NEVER have been beaten. And I saw......" Sakura thought for a moment. "While I was pregnant with Hanabi, well..... what they say about a pregnant woman's intuition is correct. I dreamed......... and I saw everything I'd ever been, and everything I ever would be. In my dream, I was running through a forest, full pelt, like a wolf.... or a horse.... or a deer. I began as a child, my hair becoming long and golden, then frizzying to black..... my hair had been charred when I was still a genin, for the longest time I had frizzy black hair. I felt all the physical changes I'd gone through as a mortal, from my first battle onward to the present day. I heard the loss of my two wives, and YES, I was married to two women. Motoko and my old sensei ZP. ZP was for me what the Doctor was for you. In EVERY sense of the word. I heard their last screams as they died. I heard the cries of my comrades appearing one by one, felt the wrench as my soul left my body and the Soul Society spread before me. I leapt into the sky in a way only a shinigami can, seeing what all that pain and sacrifice would bring about. I guess I saw you and Doctor and Rose too, all the people I knew NOW as a shinigami, were below me in that one leap."

"I could never imagine..... what that could be like....." Martha said quietly. "What did you do.....? How could you keep going?"

"I don't know." Sakura said quietly. "I was named as future captain of the 9th, long long before I died. It was a rank I didn't want. A position I hated."

"Why'd you stay?"

"At first, because I was assigned as Lieutenant to Captain Ukitake. As much as the Doctor is charming and exuberant and brilliant, Ukitake is calming, reasonable, serene. He and his classmate Kyouraku had the most seniority out of any of the captains, and the longest running command. Ukitake was in poor health, he always had been. His division relied on strong, powerful subordinates with healthy loyalty and a good sense of teamwork. I truely felt like I was needed." She sighed. "When I lost Motoko and ZP, it left such a powerful void inside....... a person can be...... physically alive and be completely dead in spirit."

Martha was silent, and for the barest moment Sakura thought she'd fallen asleep. But she shifted, snuggling closer, letting Sakura stroke her hair gently. Sakura could feel the sobs wracking the younger woman. "You alright?"

Silence. Sakura checked around. Jack was on the lower level, close enough to hear them. Doctor had his back to the door outside. "Oh boy.... you know.... your attitude now I'm surprised you aren't in Del's LBB."

"LBB?" Martha quirked a brow, sniffling.

"Delphine, the Doctor met her when I first brought him back to my clan compound. Delphine NEVER sleeps with men, and back in her wild days...... before she partnered with my friend Rangiku...... well, you probably can't contemplate a worse flirt than Jack. But she was pretty damn close. She kept the name of EVERY woman she ever slept with." Martha's face turned red.

"REALLY." She said sarcastically. "You think this Delphine of yours would ever catch me...." Martha's face quirked in a smile. "I'd much rather walk the straight path, but if I had to pick a woman to sleep with I'm more likely to take you to bed than someone like THAT."

"Is that an invitation?" Sakura joked.

"Brat." Martha giggled. "No.... well...... maybe...." She looked up. "Don't you have anybody?"

"I have a clan, and I have a job, and I have colleagues, most of whom all have someone. I've been called the biggest whore in all of soul society. ZP and Motoko left THAT BIG a hole behind......" Sakura said quietly.

"That you'd fill it in any way you could."

"Yeah....." Sakura blinked, and suddenly she was pulled down to meet Martha's lips. Gently she returned the kiss, finding the former companion clinging tighter and tighter. "I'll be leaving in the next few days, I'm not the person you want filling that void."

"Who says I care?" Martha asked quietly, Sakura could feel her white knuckle grip on her robes. Martha reached up to nuzzle her neck.

"JACK, if you're LISTENING down there I'll wring your NECK!" Sakura yelled.

"Oh don't mind me ladies. If you're going to make a scene at least let me watch."

"JERK!" Martha shrilled. "Get your mind out of the gutter!" She blushed furiously.

Sakura heard the faint rustle, the doctor sitting on the ground inside the doorway, just out of sight. He still didn't say anything. He was probably thinking, and probably mourning.

"Hey, if you make out in a public hallway, you can't expect any privacy. Or if you spill your guts."

"Yeah well..... I don't want you or Doctor discussing ANYTHING that you heard me just say."

"He's here TOO?" Martha's blush deepened.

"You need to learn to read spiritual pressure, but yeah, he's been listening. But while Jack's mind is in the gutter, his is......... well........ depressed."

"He needs some Harkness charm worked on him." Jack chirped. "Come on Doc, come down and have a drink with me. Leave the women to do..... whatever. We can do whatever things too. You know Ianto and I aren't exclusive."

"Sakura......" A familiar figure in green and white and black stood in the doorway. "Or Gwen, which one should I call you?" Yoruichi was in human form again, dressed in orange and purple and standing next to him.

"There's already a Gwen in Torchwood, call me Sakura." Sakura said cooly. "Kisuke you son of a bitch. What brings you here?"

"Well, you actually will be staying here awhile longer."

"What are you talking about?" Sakura asked. "Am I being ASSIGNED here?"

"Yeah, pretty much. That is if Jack will let you stay, here's the problem. For 500 years, the Doctor, Torchwood and all those related to them, have been the gatekeeper's worst kept secret. Only a select few have known of their existance before your time. When YOU meet him, the Gatekeepers finally go public with the existance of Timelords. Until then, any gatekeeper assigned to this dimension has to be able to fight on their own or with very little assistance. You'll be getting a team of your own soon, but you're going to need to conceal your identity to them. And you're going to be staying here for years, probably close to a decade......"

"No......." Sakura breathed. "NO! I can't stay here! When Major, when ZP, when I........."

"Yeah, when Motoko and ZP die, you'll sense it just the way you did as a young woman, for you certainly were never a little girl." Urahara said calmly. "Your spirit is as old as the timelords themselves. Your meeting the doctor again was long due I think."

"You're saying I......."

"In a previous incarnation, you went to school with him on Galifrey." Urahara chuckled. "I'm surprised he didn't recognize you. But the Doctor isn't used to dealing with reincarnation. He's met you three times after, and Sakura won't be the first incarnation you travel with him in." Urahara sighed. "aaaah, Doctor we meet finally."

"An old schoolfriend of mine?" Doctor's lips quirked.

"Gatekeeeeper......" Urahara chimed, waving his fan. "We're everywhere, been everything. When she became a shinigami she could easily have become a timelord instead."

"I think if that had happened I'd go completely INSANE." Sakura groaned. "urahara I'm NOT staying here, especially not alone."

"Yes, you are. Doctor will come get you when you're to come home. He has to keep his end of the bargain and you yours." Urahara told her. "You won't be alone. Trust me on that. I heard that Martha's future self came looking for you and Doctor when she was certain you'd appeared again. She challenged you to a fight for a kiss yeah?"

"I can hear you." Martha mumbled, sitting up straight with Sakura's captain's jacket wrapped around her. "I fought her for a kiss?"

"It was very awkward, and you seemed a little upset at me. And I wouldn't call it a kiss, more like an.... ebullient public makeout session followed by my attempting to escape when you hung onto me like a burr to a sweater. I was kinda.... hung over at the time. Never. Ever. Ever. try to out"

"Awwww, fighting a duel for a kiss, how romantic." Jack teased.

Urahara giggled. "Yes, well..... I'm not sure in the slightest how that came about." Urahara grinned, fanning his smirk. "I'd like to know how that happened. Do tell me."

"You were right, you're a perverted businessman." Sakura sighed.

"Sakura I'm sorry, you need to stay." Urahara said quietly. "And you will be there for the better part of a decade. Ririn will be coming in the morning, she will have a gigai that looks nothing like your human or shinigami selves." He looked amused. "You could, I suppose, call yourself the third Sakura."

"YOU ARE MAD!" Sakura snarled. "I'm NOT staying!"

"Yes you are. I'm sorry Sakura but this is not negotiable. You are to come up with an identity and pass as a human as best you can. YOU are needed. The Whoverse is VERY important to us. Did you know the entrance to the Spear Pillar used to be on Galifrey? One on Galifrey, one well..... I've yet to find out where the other one was."

"Yes, of that I'm aware." Sakura's face twitched. "And the entry to the hall of origin is in the Spear Pillar."

"Do you think that's a coincidence?" Urahara asked calmly. "The Doctor's generation was...... less than savory. Between Master, Rani, and Borusa they were all on a road to self destruction. But for ages and ages, the Timelords were considered some of the most trustworthy races in the multiverse. They were one of the First Races....."

"They weren't trustworthy, but they didn't......"

"A house that feuds within itself can't stand." Urahara said cooly. "If your peers had been more unified they would have been able to stop Galifrey's destruction in the final timewar. Ancient Zians, Azarathan's, Nikkisashi shinigami and Timelords, all ancient first races. If the Last Son of Galifrey falls, so does the dimension he lives in. And because he is the last of a first race his world will rapidly go off the path it needs to take and drag the rest of the strand with it. Sakura..... if he gets the chance Gin will KILL him. Aizen is no idiot, he will know EXACTLY how to slay a timelord. He'll either beat it out of Rani, bargain it out of the Master, neither Donna nor Jenny are old enough to know. You have to stay here to protect him. The first races are some of the most important peoples. We OWE the Timelords our very existance. A long time ago, the first races surpassed the gods, protected them, and became the Sentinals that watched over the world they left behind."

"I don't care about first races. Raven is 5 centuries out of my childhood. I lost ZP and a part of my soul went with her, and Rem is the only Nikkisashi I truely cared for. The Doctor..... HE matters. He can't be a target." Sakura shook her head. "I can protect him well enough from Soul Society."

"No, you can't. To protect him, you need to be a part of his universe, or you will forever be a stranger, unable to understand what you should be protecting him from and why. Alright..... let me put it this way. When a first race is targeted, like the Timelords, and by now Aizen definately has a laser sight on Doctor's back. The fate of the Strand usually comes into question. Because the Timelords kept time flowing the way it should, things more or less stayed intact. But if Aizen has his way he'll kill the doctor, steal the tardis, plunder first Torchwood and then UNIT, then kill ALL the doctor's companions. EVER. And trust me there are a lot of them and they did a LOT that kept the multiverse moving, Timelord Tech in the hands of a MONSTER like Aizen, without a timelord WISE enough to know how to counter it, is a recipe for DEATH."

Martha sat up, still draped in Sakura's coat. "The first races, what do you mean?"

"The gatekeepers, its something out of their oldest stories." Urahara looked over at Sakura pleasently, but the Doctor interrupted him.

"Yes, the tales of Galifrey tell of deities that disappeared. They're fairytales, told to children." The Doctor sounded alarmed. "They say that the gods disappeared, granting the powers of time, space, mind and death to four planets. Galifrey was time...."

"There's some truth in that, the first timelords were witness to the birth of the gatekeepers Doctor. Galifrey, Azarath, Zi and the Shinigami Realm." Urahara gestured for Doctor, Captain, Sakura and Martha to gather around him. "Sakura, you need to stay because more than any of the gatekeepers currently active in this timeline, you have the most experience with hollows AND because you officially don't exist yet you're the perfect match for Torchwood, the Doctor and ANY of his companions. And now that he knows there are timelords still around.... oh yeah, if he knows about the King's Key, he will know about the existance of Timelords. The news that there's still one left after they were all presumed dead will have painted a target on the Doctor's back. Timelords are just as vulnerable to hollows as a human, it would be insanely easy for a bunch of them to jump the Tardis in the right circumstances and tear the Doctor to pieces. The Timelords WITNESSED the death of the gods and the creation of the Gatekeepers. Hell, Rassilon himself was counted among the numbers of the original gatekeepers. His powercore was later destroyed, so he is no longer around and will never be reincarnated, but it goes to show how powerful they are as a race."

The Doctor paled. "Keep any mention of Rassilon ANYWHERE in your people's records secret. The timelords spoke his name in terror."

"I'm not surprised." Urahara said calmly. "And my lips are sealed. I've heard the kinds of things he's created and I'm astounded, truely I could never have come up with anything similar."

"Who was he?" Martha asked, curiously.

"The most powerful scientist in the history of my people. He invented the Tardises, and the shielding system that keeps the timestream's radiation from killing the people inside. He's somebody that my people speak of in fear." Doctor explained.

"Boys please stick to the PRESENT era?" Sakura snapped, "i'm not staying. Find somebody else. You're going to ABANDON me for a decade? You've got some balls, I have a CLAN that needs me, I have duties as a captain! I'll be labled a deserter and have a death order put on my head."

"You have plenty of time on this end of history, Sakura, and if anything happens and a death order is indeed placed on your head, going back in time to foil a plot of Aizen's is, fortunately, a plausible excuse for your absence. You need to keep Aizen OUT of this dimension. We NEED a gatekeeper, and we NEED one who's a shinigami. Everybody else has places they need to be in history." Urahara warned her.

"Find somebody else......" Sakura growled.

"Donna's awake, come with ME sakura!" Urahara dragged Sakura into the infirmary by the shirt. "DONNA..... i know you're probably in pain with the biggest headache you've had in 500 years. But can you explain why SAKURA needs to be the one who stays here and none of the others?"

"You promised Sakura......" Donna said sleepily. She was still too weak to open her eyes. "....... you were the one I saw..... you didn't just drive Gin away, you stayed and faught him the way a bloodhound stays on the scent of a rabbit. And when Ivan came you stood up for this place like it was home...... I sent information where it needed to be, when it needed to be..... using reishi fingerprinting so you'd know I'd sent it......"

"Sakura, you were flung back to Feralae's time the night before your wedding. Remember?"

"Shut up. that's completely different! I was tossed there against my will. And in case you haven't forgotten, I had to betray my sensei, the woman I loved more than anyone in the world, the woman I would walk through fire for, take a bullet for, give my life for, in order to return. Its not a pleasent memory in the slightest. I'm supposed to SIT in this dimension, just give up and forget everything I worked for, everything that I earned..... I wanted to return as ME."

"Sakura, do you know how long I waited for the Doctor?" Jack asked with a snicker. "A whole century. You have it easy, you just have to wait a decade."

Sakura looked nearly ready to throw a tempertantrum. But then Donna smirked. "Hey, don't you want to know why Martha's future self challenged you for a kiss?" The female timelord quirked her lips. "I know why."

Sakura sighed. "WHY?" She asked Donna, exasperated.

The female timelord smirked behind closed eyelids, "Spoilers." The Doctor started laughing. "You'll just have to stay and find out."

"Geki, alright, I give." Sakura said, her tone angry, but defeated. "If not just one, but two timelords tell me to stay, I guess I have to."

"I know you're not happy with it." Urahara told her.

"I can't deny you AND Donna." Sakura said cooly. "And a hollow is a hollow, no matter where or when. And I HATE Ivan." She said this with a sigh. "You know me too well Urahara. I took 13th's lieutenant seat because I couldn't deny Ukitake. I got guilted into the 9th captaincy, because there were certain Captains whose faith in me gave me enough strength to take the jacket and make it mine. And for the longest time, after I lost Major and ZP, it was my sense of duty that kept me from slitting my own throat."

"You won't have any reason to fall into that kind of despair..... I promise." Donna said quietly, still exhausted. "You'll love it here, and they'll miss you."

"You learned well." The Doctor was still laughing. "Spoilers, you never lost your sense of humor."

"Thank River for that......" Donna sighed, "The library was one of the places you took me that made the biggest impression on me. After Pompeii...... and I actually got to meet Agatha Cristie........." The timelord was sleepy, but Donna was so happy to be back that she couldn't stop talking.

"It had to hurt...... being stuck up there for so long." Sakura said quietly.

"Then you can empathize, your home, your rank, your duty becoming your prison." Donna said quietly. "I'll have to go back, I'm needed. I want to run free under the sky, dance through the stars the way the Doctor and his people did, but if I don't return, if i run away, then they either appoint somebody who would abuse the position, or they take the Doctor and leave this world defenseless. Jenny is a Savant, she can't take up a shield council position unless Chronos decides to let her go."

"Your shield becomes your prison....... that's the expression." Urahara said kindly. "You could have asked the Doctor to stop this, to fix it so you never........"

"_If it has happened, it must. - Ramoth._" Donna quoted. "It happened, and it has to. Sakura...... take care of the Doctor for me."

Sakura sighed. "Alright..... and if I'm allowed to I'll come up to the station to visit you." Sakura promised, taking Donna's hand.

The female timelord squeezed it. "I'm completely out of chakra, i'm stuck here for awhile...."

"Hey, where'd Owen get to?"

"He went out to get drunk." Donna said with a chuckle. "He can now you know."

Jack started laughing. "Come on Sakura...... we need to work on an identity for you."

~To be continued~

Alright guys, if you want to see more of this, review saying that I'm not as crazy as this fic makes me appear to be. If I have enough people liking this the fic will be continued under a second title in the Torchwood Section.

Craziness in progress....

Gwen


End file.
